The Visual and Innovation Design students’ project was selected by Neologia and exhibited at the Graphic Days in Turin, receiving a special mention from Zetafonts for the experimental approach.
RUFA students Davide Del Prete, Giuseppe Elia, Lidia Matarazzo e Martina Pani developed the project àltera as part of the Visual Design course taught by lecturer Antonio Pace.
The project is rooted in Esercizi di Stile by Queneau, a book that consists of 99 stories of the same story. Each story is distinguished from the others by stylistic variations, demonstrating the infinite possibilities of writing.
Following in the footsteps of Queneau’s work, which represents not only a content alteration but above all a formal alteration, àltera was born as an aesthetic and compositional expression of the text.
The entries are not intended to report the original story in its entirety or to have a comprehensible narrative form. The key point is in the heterogeneity of the chosen typefaces and their use. A second level of material alteration is applied to the compositions, with the intention of showing a further aesthetic and formal deformation of the typeface. The effect finds different concretisations depending on the anatomical properties of the letters, such as weights and contrasts between the shafts, and the chromatic choice of the composition (positive or negative).
After designing each typographic composition, the students did some editing work to obtain a balanced yet dynamic editorial rhythm.
A second level of analogue experimentation using water and glycerine on a glass surface was added to the papers.
The àltera project originated in a university environment, responding to a request for a paper focused on typographic experimentation. Research aimed at analysing trends and styles in type design accompanied us throughout the academic year.
