Be Berlin

At the height of the Be Berlin image campaign—which was launched in 2008—the Berlin Senate decided in 2012 to introduce a new corporate design across their administrative offices. The old logo was replaced by the Be Berlin logo, and the red speech bubble also made its way into the corporate identity toolbox. The aim of the new design was to create a uniform appearance for all Berlin administrations and their subordinate authorities in order to improve recognition and strengthen their external image.

The Berlin campaign got its unmistakable profile from the typeface Change, which was developed in 2008 and designed by Alessio Leonardi. The eye-catching slab serif carried the advertising messages in the first phase of the campaign and became a set piece for all Berliners, who wrote three-line declarations of love for their city in the Be Berlin bubble.

The Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit wanted to use the campaign typography across the city’s communication and this led to the development of the more neutral Change Sans subfamily. The original typewriter-style typeface was given the name Change Letter. Change Sans was optimized for longer texts and small print, with proportional widths, simpler letters, narrow running and a slightly lighter base cut to enhance the contrast between Regular and Bold.

In 2022, Fontwerk cooperated with Alessio Leonardi to completely revise and extend Change, resulting in the brand new Change (Sans) subfamily. The number of weights has increased from five to eleven and it is now available as a variable font; hundreds of weights can now be set between the extremes of Hairline and ExtraBlack.

Futhermore, the character set has also been expanded to meet current standards. Glyphs for Cyrillic, Greek, as well as Vietnamese have been revised, quality-checked and tested by experienced experts. Finally, small caps have been added to all weights to expand Change’s typographic diversity.