The Edit: five projects including the Native Instruments MASCHINE MK3 DINAMO

Each and every day, we're lucky to discover dozens of interesting and inspiring projects from around the world. From global identities and campaigns to side projects and independently published books, The Edit is home to five of them; every two weeks. In a one-of-a-kind collaboration, Berlin-based music manufacturer Native Instruments have teamed up with Swiss type design agency Dinamo to produce a special edition of their MASCHINE MK3 music production instrument. The limited run of 750 pieces sees it clad with a black and silver screenprint, as well as Dinamo’s inktrap-heavy sans serif Whyte as an homage to “throw-up graffiti and marquee news tickers.” With inktraps originating from early printing techniques to prevent ink bleeding, the duo saw a connection between the typeface and the instrument that goes beyond style too. “Whyte is a typeface that embodies ideas and production methods of the past and adds the variability and digital type design methods from today,” Dinamo’s Johannes Breyer tells us; just like how the MK3 is at the cutting edge of music production but originated from the sample-based music-making of the 80s and 90s. The Native Instruments MASCHINE MK3 DINAMO is available here. NJBO, or the National Youth Windband of Switzerland, is a group of seventy young musicians that come together every year to perform three concerts all over Switzerland. Since their establishment, they have been helping to overcome musical borders for young people, unite linguistic difficulties between Switzerland’s four languages and push the country’s musical reputation on the international stage. Their reworked identity courtesy of Zurich-based designer Mauro Simeon embraces their mission, utilising dynamic stretching letterforms in reference to overcoming borders and making connections. The typeface of choice, Studio Feixen Sans, is the perfect match for the concept due to its geometric forms – allowing for seamless stretching across the entire alphabet. The concept is further emphasised in the organisation’s oversized ‘N’ logomark, which stands for ‘national’ in all four of the country’s languages and unapologetically fills whichever space it finds itself placed within.