The Royal Carré Theatre in Amsterdam is the most well-known theatre in The Netherlands. Since its opening in 1887, this landmark building at the bank of the Amstel river carries a rich history of hosting circuses, cabaret, vaudeville shows, stand-up comedy, musicals, ballet performances and concerts.

Citizens of Amsterdam will be familiar with the theatre’s iconic posters that can be found at dedicated spots in the city throughout the year. These posters — produced in-house following a design by studio Thonik — always feature a bright red background and simple, powerful typography in white.

The theatre’s new typeface, called Oskar Carré Poster, was designed to match their already existing logo. Like the logo, the typeface cites the style of advertising lettering typical for the early 20th century in Holland, with unique, high and low-waisted letterforms. A special feature is the dedicated glyph for the often-used (in Dutch) ‘IJ’ combination: a shorter ‘I’ above the long bottom curve of ‘J’ — a form once very common but not widely used anymore. To complement the basic style and to enable more varied applications, an inline version was produced as well.