Christian Schwartz started sketching Control in 2017. Its first appearance was in a special publication produced by Interview for Art Basel Miami in November 2022. Commercial Type made the font family available for early licensing from their Vault in October 2023, and officially released it in June 2024. It was just a matter of time before Control made its debut on Fonts In Use.
In spring 2025, NODE Berlin Oslo used it for the promotion of an exhibition at Deutsche Bank’s PalaisPopulaire in Berlin, curated by Liberty Adrien and Carina Bukuts and titled It’s Just a Matter of Time.
The designers didn’t work with the core styles – Control Upright and Italic – that were inspired by the sans serif examples in Walter Käch’s 1949 lettering manual Schriften Lettering Écriture. No, it’s a bold weight from the collection’s third branch, Control Cursive. This alternative italic was drawn by Miguel Reyes, loosely inspired by the 1980s Letraset face Van Dijk.
Secondary text on the poster is set in the patron’s custom typeface by supertype, simply named Deutsche Bank. The artwork is Rosemarie Trockel’s Untitled (Schizopullover) from 1988.