TSTO — Don’t Shoot the Messenger

Helsinki Design Museum Don’t Shoot the Messenger •

2014

Don’t Shoot the Messenger

CLIENT
Design Museum Helsinki

PHOTOS
Paavo Lehtonen

CATEGORIES

Visual identity for an exhibition about graphic design at the Design Museum Helsinki.

While developing the visual identity for the exhibition, we discussed how the graphic design practice could be demystified.

Every era and every artistic discipline produces its own manifestos that aim to redefine the present. We wanted to turn the gaze inwards and ask which aspects of graphic design are really necessary, and which are just visual trickery.

We drew up a list of ten rules aiming to divert from the most typical visual mannerisms of today: 1. No set margins or grids, 2. No perfectionism, 3. No lines or underlining, 4. No colours, 5. No in-jokes, 6. No minimalism, 7. No brushwork or calligraphy, 8. No illustration, 9. No system fonts (e.g. Times, Arial or Helvetica), 10. No text placed upright, crosswise or following a curved path

In order to avoid expressiveness in typography we chose to set the texts in a so-called metafont. A metafont does not have just one set form. Instead, its curves, proportions, and line thickness are based on mathematical parameters that can be adjusted. The result is neither “beautiful” nor “ugly” but mechanical and rudimentary. Our metafont was generated using Metaflop.

By these means we sought to separate functional form from aesthetics and communication from decoration. We are left with an ascetic design system that challenges some contemporary conceptions and expectations concerning graphic design.