THE UNIVERS PROJECT
Twenty-one posters each using only one original weight of typeface Univers.
UNIVERS & STELLA
Twenty-one posters each using only one original weight of Adrian Frutiger's typeface Univers. Each piece is a promotional poster for American artist Frank Stella's touring retrospective exhibition. The exhibition showcases Stella's prolific career to date.
RESEARCH & EXPERIMENTS
This project began as an open-ended exploration of Univers. The scope of the project and deliverables were undetermined. It started with weeks of research and experiments with the typeface before landing on what the project would become. Research included studying covers from Typographische Monatsblatter (TM) to comparing Univers to Helvectica to creating my own shapes and patterns with the letterforms.
DESIGN TWENTY-ONE POSTERS
After researching and reflecting on how Univers was created and what the typeface's purpose the focus was clear: the styles and weights.
I planned to create twenty-one posters that used only one of the original twenty-one weights of Univers. The posters could only use type. Color would be allowed but no images, shapes or other content that was not typographic. The first phase of designs included at least three poster options for each weight. After the initial three or more posters were created the designs were narrowed down to a final direction.
The poster's are promotional pieces for Frank Stellaís retrospective exhibit that is touring America from 2015-2017. Stella's work is often very geometric. Visually referencing Stella's work with Univers came naturally. Inspiration was taken from his expansive works that include paintings, sculptures and drawings.
