Ebook Design for Inside Lottozero by Studio Mut — BP&O
Text by Richard Baird.
In Lottozero there was an exhibition of international artists who covered a wide range of artistic disciplines. It was designed by Arianna and Tessa Moroder and curated by Alessandra Tempesti. The exhibition took place in the Lottozero / Textile Laboratories in Tuscany, Italy and lasted until November 20, 2016. Under the concept of "non-stop fruit", the exhibition opened with a 12-hour overnight event during which people were invited to linger and immerse themselves and connect more deeply with the artwork. This included
The exhibition catalog is a 184-page hardcover book, published by Tessa and Arianna Moroder, curated by Alessandra Tempesti and designed by Studio Mut. It shows the 13 exhibiting artists, shows how diverse textile art and research can be, and is a trilingual publication that combines English, Italian and German. These languages are graphically interwoven, each language being delimited by its orientation on the page.
Reviewing graphic design can be a powerful format. But is increasingly overlooked. The immediacy and seductive properties of images, which blogs, journals and social media only provide with images, are a challenge for design discourse, as is algorithmic governance and determinism. As Real Review's Jack Self suggests, the review “looks back to look ahead; It examines the past to understand its relevance to the future. “Without this, graphic design becomes an Ouroboros that only consumes itself and brings fewer and fewer ideas from outside. With this in mind, BP & O looks back on the work of Studio Mut for Inside Lottozero in 2016 to advance and interpret new ideas, just as the catalog supports the ideas and meaning of a short-lived exhibition and moves them into the future .
The design of the book contains a number of beautiful graphic gestures. These are useful invitations to attract people. The immediacy of the textile pattern-like cover, the changing page numbers and the mechanical and hardworking properties of LottoZero Bold. However, there are two aspects of the book that I want to use as starting points. The first is the color-blocked printed page of the book and the second is the confluence of page orientation and language.
The printed pages of the book become a critical surface that exceeds expectations and is supported by the positioning of the book title over the leading edge, head and tail. It reconfigures the hierarchy. The most striking gesture is an eye-catching graphic expression, that of a textile pattern. At the same time, the device of the book is set up by means of marginal printing (several orientations) and a proposal is made (things that have to be viewed from all sides and conceptually, inside / ideas and outside / aesthetically).
The perfect design of cover and content as well as the use of color blocking on the edges underline the volumetric character of the book. It initially undermines its function as a book and instead gives a solid first impression as if it were a solid block. This really emphasizes that exterior surfaces are interconnected, as something that can be experienced as a whole, rather than as a cover, spine, and back. As a result of the expansion, the terms "inside" and "outside" are brought to the fore. In other words, instead of printing out bound pages and envelopes, it's more like a jar or container, something that contains something. This is particularly interesting with regard to the exhibition name Inside Lottozero (thoughts) and in the context of sculptures and physical works of art (form).
The second aspect is the trilingualism of the book and the way the materiality of the printed and bound book enables such interactions that involve holding and rotating an axis, not something that is experienced on the screen and certainly nothing that You can do that with a work of art. Instead of the artwork being a central point of movement, the reader has control over the book. Only a child begins to learn about its material world through transition objects. The orientation of the languages promotes this interaction. It also ensures a striking aesthetic.
There are some nice layouts. Bold statements, body copies and quotations are clearly defined, they become a paratext, their relationship with one another is an expression in and of itself in addition to the space. It helps to create a new relationship with the pictures. Even when reading in English, the visual orientation language of other languages is a provocation to look at pictures from different angles and in other ways and to translate the situational experience of the gallery. Of course, the entire experience of the spatial arrangement of a gallery is missing here, but the gesture is relevant and refers to the ideas shown. Other works by Studio Mut on BP & O.
Design: Studio Mut. Opinion: Richard Baird. Fonts: LottoZero.
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