momentum, Olten

Published August 17, 2025

In the industrial district next to the train track in Olten, Switzerland, there’s an indoor skate and boulder hall on the second floor of an industrial building. At our visit, it was run by a single person who took care of ticketing, rentals, introductions, a small bar, and the tiny shop in the corner. The note saying that there was no pizza or tarte flambée might have been related to this understaffed situation.

The logo typeface for momentum has been “found on the internet” by one of the operators, Tobias Flotron. It’s Motter Ombra which has also been applied in big hand-cut wooden letters to one of the walls. Next to this main logo font, the subtitle is Avenir Next Bold Italic. On the ramps are vinyl letters by their producer KÄGIRAMPS & CO. They appear to be from Cairo Black 900, the Arabic version of Titillum that is less fat than its Latin counterpart.

The color coding of the skating area, including the graffiti, is held in orange and black. The orange might have been inspired by metal beams original to the building. It’s the fact that the tone of orange does not quite match which brings me to this conclusion.

Stickers handed to us as first time clients, with a big Motter Ombra m, white on orange.

Entrance counter, bar and small shop at momentum. El Tony, the Swiss mate soft drink, seems to be big in the skater community.

The entrance door, orange on brown, really brings home the look and feel of Motter Ombra.

We did not add our stickers to the window in the staircase, but brought them home with us for better application.

This post was originally published at Fonts In Use

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