Univers : couvertures

RFLX is a visualization exercise translated into a series of unique notebook covers that describe a network of lines that rotate three degrees from one copy to another and a selection of letters that revolve in isometric space. Just as the north acts on the needle of a compass, the facets of the letters influence the angle of the lines.

Beginning with photography of the artwork produced for the exhibition, the book goes on to provide further context through photography of the installation process alongside the exhibition statement; documentation of performances held in, on, and around the work; interviews with the artists about their processes and past work; and essays on the history of public art in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The book’s design references the visual language of construction and division of public space, reinforcing the exhibition’s theme of belonging and questioning the lines that unite and divide a city.

A Sydney-based street poster artist moving from Sydney to L.A. commissioned a book to showcase her posters and help launch her career in the United States. A typographical device was designed using the artist’s initials, WM, as the principal typeface. This created a strong, graphic narrative illustrating the artist’s evolution and journey. It has a feeling of movement and progression. The overall effect is a striking cover based on organic typography. The cover graphic also works as a stand-alone design.

At ArtCenter, each student receives a unique education. To reflect this experience, we combined time-honored craft with cutting-edge technology to design a system that configured (and reconfigured) modules to generate 40,500 unique covers for the college’s 2019–20 Viewbook for prospective students. The modules were inspired by West Coast modernist Alvin Lustig—who taught at ArtCenter a half-century ago—and his proposal of using timeless geometric shapes to create complex patterns. Complementing this modular system is a grid that plays an active role throughout the publication, as well as a new, fixed-width monospace font created by alumnus Josh Finklea.

The book compiles fourteen books written and designed by Gustavo Piqueira that sought to blur many of the existing limits between the established categories of the printed book, through the exploration of the most varied articulations between text and image, visual and material, industrial and handmade, past and present, fiction and nonfiction. The cover therefore reflects two of the main dimensions of Gustavo’s work: the deconstruction of “traditional” arrangements—a book cover in which everything seems out of place—and, by offering the reader the possibility of assembling/disassembling it, a playful look on the book as a material object.

Estado(s) de Emergência (State(s) of Emergency) was an art exhibition by the Paço das Artes cultural center in downtown São Paulo, curated by Priscila Arantes and Diego Matos. The works in the exhibition reflected upon the military dictatorship period and its reminiscences in modern-day Brazil. The design took inspiration from redacted documents and political graffiti: the friction between institutional censorship and public manifestation. For the promotional material and catalog cover, the title of the exhibition and artists’ names were struck through, circled around, being barely legible. Black and yellow were chosen as a sign of “warning.”

One Day is a portrait of a randomly chosen date in America. Gene Weingarten’s writing reveals the beauty and complexity of the ordinary. As a commonplace object itself, as well as the basis of the author’s research, newspaper felt like an appropriate fit. I wanted the design to express the notion of time and events combining and overlapping into a single spiral. The typography reflects the newspaper design of the day. The copy on the inside of the spiral is taken directly from various sections of the day’s paper. The design was worked sculpturally with minimal digital use to feel authentic and tangible.