INVISIBLE CITIES

by Italo Calvino

My response to the 2021 ISTD student assessment scheme ‘Invisible Cities’ brief. The brief was to design a new edition, that forms a radical retelling of the story; with the typograhy to visually explore each of the cities, reflecting their characteristics and idiosyncrasies.

The design of the book brings to light the previously hidden mathematical structure that Italo Calvino used to move through the different cities and reflects the pattern that it makes. This pattern is revealed in the contents page at the start of the book and each subsequent page links back to it through the location of the title and page numbers. The book is printed on semi transparent bible paper, allowing a build up of text to be seen through the pages. The typography builds up and the cities blend together to form the one city in which they are all describing, Venice.

HISTORICAL ADVERTS OF LINCOLN

This hand bound book of Historial Adverts was made in response to a 48 hour research trip to Lincoln. Whilst I was there, I discovered that the city was extremely clean, with no litter, posters or anything left behind. Once the people had disappeared there was no evidence of them ever having been there. This led onto me imagining what kind of things people may have left behind in the past that could reference the rich history of the city.

Each advert is made by either screenprinting, etching or letterpress and each one references an aspect of the city's history that I discovered whilst I was there. The binding of the book allows the adverts to be removed and looked at individually.