ADC Awards
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Category
Publication
Annual ID
ADC102_TYP019B
About the Work
On the occasion of the ten-year anniversary of its artist residency program at Villa Kamogawa, the Goethe Insitute in Kyoto invited former residents to submit “connecting pieces” (Japanese: “tsunagu mono gatari”, German: “Verbindungsstücke”) of Japanese-German cultural exchange for an exhibition and catalogue.
Our visual concept and multi-script typography is centered around a playful, unconventional approach to the different directions of reading: from top to bottom, left to right, and vice versa. 73 artist cards and a 60-page brochure of essays are held together by two wrappers. The unboxing experience of the catalogue slowly reveals a carefully selected color palette from solid green to quiet lavender and surprising yellow. The covers are printed letterpress.
Oftentimes, bilingual publications tend to lean towards a primary language — something we absolutely wanted to avoid by treating both languages equally in every detail. The catalogue does not have a front and a back, but two front covers and two spines. In the brochure the different reading directions played into our hands: the Japanese text starts on one side, the German text starts on the other and they meet in the middle very conveniently. Instead of forcing the reading habits of one language on the other, we developed two layouts that harmonize typographically and included details such as the indicated horizontal division of the page or the consistent page numbering. The typographic arrangement is different on almost every artist card, the two languages are never on the same baseline.
All text is set in Alessio D’Ellena’s Laica and in Akira Kataoka’s Marumin Katura, selected to complement each other. In addition to this convergence, the titling face Ribaasu offers a connecting element between the different scripts of both languages. Type designer TienMin Liao exclusively donated her unreleased yet award-winning typeface to this project.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 9
Bronze Cube
Credits
Design Firm
Toshiya Izumo & Ferdinand Ulrich / Berlin
Client / Brand
Goethe Institute / Kyoto
Publisher
Wasmuth & Zohlen / Berlin
Freelancer
Ferdinand Ulrich
Toshiya Izumo
Art Director
Ferdinand Ulrich
Toshiya Izumo
Photographer
Kazuo Fukunaga
Yukie Beheim
Producer
Daniel Klotz
Curator
Michael Hirschbichler
Color advisor
Nari Haase
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