Almost everything in this world is touched by design. The text you are reading now, too, is the result of numerous design decisions: typeface, paper, printing process, letter spacing, line height and more. In exhibitions in particular, visual design is one of the key tools of communication. Yet this contribution is rarely addressed or made explicit.
Here, things are different. “Living Archive of Design & Freedom” was developed by the design and branding studio Autostrada Studios in close collaboration with Anton Rahlwes. The design consistently follows the exhibition’s own method: distinct positions come together to form an overall picture that opens up new ways of access.
The starting point of the visual identity is a list, accessible at thethingfellowship.com, which serves as an ongoing record of the works on display. It brings together the essential information about the projects and makes it available in formats adapted to each context. At the same time, the list develops its own aesthetic quality — a kind of fetishisation of data. On this basis, the visual identity has been extended to further formats: the reader, visuals for social media and the informational poster within the exhibition.
Precisely because the list itself contains few visual elements, the choice of typeface becomes all the more significant. The decision to use the Garamond family is no coincidence. It is one of the oldest typefaces still in use today, widely available as a standard font across digital systems, and traces back to the French punchcutter Claude Garamond in the sixteenth century. As a serif typeface — with the small strokes or “feet” at the ends of letters it is known for its readability and has traditionally been used above all in book printing. In this sense, Garamond is a fitting choice for an exhibition on design and freedom: it points both to the origins of knowledge transmission in printed form and to its translation into the digital present.
Almost everything in this world is touched by design. The text you are reading now, too, is the result of numerous design decisions: typeface, paper, printing process, letter spacing, line height and more. In exhibitions in particular, visual design is one of the key tools of communication. Yet this contribution is rarely addressed or made explicit.
Here, things are different. “Living Archive of Design & Freedom” was developed by the design and branding studio Autostrada Studios in close collaboration with Anton Rahlwes. The design consistently follows the exhibition’s own method: distinct positions come together to form an overall picture that opens up new ways of access.
The starting point of the visual identity is a list, accessible at thethingfellowship.com, which serves as an ongoing record of the works on display. It brings together the essential information about the projects and makes it available in formats adapted to each context. At the same time, the list develops its own aesthetic quality — a kind of fetishisation of data. On this basis, the visual identity has been extended to further formats: the reader, visuals for social media and the informational poster within the exhibition.
Precisely because the list itself contains few visual elements, the choice of typeface becomes all the more significant. The decision to use the Garamond family is no coincidence. It is one of the oldest typefaces still in use today, widely available as a standard font across digital systems, and traces back to the French punchcutter Claude Garamond in the sixteenth century. As a serif typeface — with the small strokes or “feet” at the ends of letters it is known for its readability and has traditionally been used above all in book printing. In this sense, Garamond is a fitting choice for an exhibition on design and freedom: it points both to the origins of knowledge transmission in printed form and to its translation into the digital present.