‘WARTAAL’ is a playground for language and performing arts the studio has designed at contemporary art gallery TENT Rotterdam. Wartaal is a collaborative project by TENT Rotterdam, Theater Rotterdam, writer Raoul de Jong and StudioSpass. Visitors are invited to make their first steps in this magical world and discover what performance art is and does. In addition to performance as an art form, language is also an important theme. A full alfabet of 26 activities makes visitors perform and explore language in various ways.

The playful typography system the studio designed plays the main visual role and can be found and everywhere within the space. All interactive elements have been designed

Die verostatic-Schrift war die erste Schriftart die ich experimentell und analog mit Stift, Papier und Kopierer zeichnete und später in der Finalversion digitalisierte. Anfangs natürlich noch namenlos, wurde die Schrift zur verostatic, was quasi als Wortneuschöpfung zu verstehen ist; „static“ aufgrund ihrer statischen Erscheinungsform und „vero“ abgeleitet von meinem Rufnamen Verena sowie der lateinischen Bedeutung für wahr, echt oder auch glaubwürdig. Somit war die verostatic dann auch Namensgeber für mich und meine Arbeiten.

So Me Thing Kunsthal
‘SO ME THING’ an interactive installation created for the exhibition ‘Do it’ at Kunsthal Rotterdam 2015. The piece, consisting of 50 layers of typography applied and divided over 7200 unique numbered pages, is our interpretation of Robert Barry’ s original doit #93 (2012) for the exhibition manual by curator Hans Ullrich Orbist

“Do something unique that only you and no one else in the world can do. Don’t call it art.”

The installation invites visitors to tear of sheets of paper to create their own (read ‘so me’) typographic composition. By doing so visitors playfully discover all the hidden designed typographic layers. The message So Me Thing remains readable till the

„Anna“ is a stencil font inspired by the symmetrical shapes of the Rorschachtest. The organic klecksographies of the psychological test were reduced to abstract, monolined glyphs with ornaments that allow the letters to be connected if set tightly.

Taking inspiration from the work of the artist Getulio Alviani, the poster combines typography and colour to create an optical illusion. If the spectators look closely, they will see a series of blue and red lines, but if they take a step back, they will be able to read.

Based on Vivian Dehning‘s characterization of her typeface Supertramp, this series shows letters pridefully taking up space. They show themselves from different perspectives, so close that their bodies go beyond the limits of the frame. Different color and texture variations enhance their diverse characters and identities. Although you see nothing but letters, you might not see them immediately, blurring the visual line between typography and abstract art.

Everybody uses them while speaking, avoids them when writing and removes them when correcting texts – filler words. “aber eigentlich” was developed from the observation of how these words are viewed and used in German. Between micro- and macro typographic design, twelve experiments show visualized effects of filler words such as making texts unnecessarily longer. Three experiments are then turned into three axis of a variable font to realisticly show the complexity of using these words in a relevant context. The typographic approach is an experimental translation based on semiotic linguistic facts. The project also includes audio experiments, posters and a book to summarize everything.

The concept of “user friendliness” focuses on ease of use above all else. In order to achieve this, most websites use standardized design and interface conventions that don’t require the user to learn how to use a new interface — instead, users repeat the behavior they’ve been trained to do.
In Anti User-friendly, I construct hard-to-use devices and interfaces in order to challenge the notion of user friendliness and bring back content awareness. Anti User-friendly creates a situation in which users need to explore and learn before they can use the interfaces. Through this process, users are given an opportunity to become conscious again — in a way, a form of self care.

Effective communication and education is the road to more tolerant communities. The idea is simply to create a fun & engaging way of learning Modern Standard Arabic through Lego- LET’S PLAY is a full Linguistic/visual bilingual system,meant to break the fear of language, transform the educational experience,in order to bring both scripts & people closer together.

Anarchy in the age of the robots is a self-destructive variable typeface based on the manifesto of the same name by Narodnaya Samooborona. This typeface was developed on the basic idea of construction and deconstruction during the university seminar “Manifesto” by Pascal Kress. It consists of two variable axes.

For a couple of years the draft of this font was around in our studio, originally exploring the possibilities of creating glyphs just with a quarter circle and a line as one of the most reduced possibilities. When Helen Feifels catalogue and exhibition “something else shapes“ at Kunsthalle Lingen came up last year we developed it further to a flexible and “dripping“ form, reflecting her artistic practice.

The typeface in this photographic series has been generated by extracting forms from the famous Jean Dubuffet’s Hourloupe pictorial works. Named Type Brut it was created by Nadine during an interdisciplinary residency at Dubuffet’s former atelier in France in June 2019. The headdresses and masks were designed subsequently as a means to experiment with the letterforms – in space and in relationship to the body. The pieces were supposed to be showcased at LASALLE’s Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore in April 2020, but the exhibition was cancelled due to COVID-19 and Nadine continued to work on them during the lockdown. They were imagined, not as fashion objects, but as visual elements of

OPUS is a fusion type project that combines pre-printed, pre-determined elements with physical materials in a ‘response’ or ‘reaction’ style lab. The aesthetic has vernacular connections but the process is closer to traditional type design and graphic problem solving. For these forms to work [(as)OPUS], they need to manifest as both highly considered and (have the visual energy of being) thrown together. This project is continuous, ongoing, generative and collaborative.

„timewriter“ is an alternative, innovative time measurement system. It extends the known linear time system by an additional component of individual time perception. The actual duration of time and the perceived duration rarely overlap and often even run in opposite directions. „timewriter“ transfers this ambivalence into a graphical system, which can only be read and decoded on the basis of certain parameters.

Typographics project exploring the impact of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site in Nevada, USA. Image series exploring poetic data approaches to creative writing and generative design through computation, made with Python and p5js. Special thanks to Lynne Yun, Kevin Yeh, and Allison Parrish.

Design has always been significantly influenced by technical possibilities. Today, programs and algorithms increasingly
determine our way of visualizing and thinking. In order to retain the ability of action and judgement in times of new technologies, not only coherence but also mechanisms of action should be systematically investigated.
In many cases generative design is a self-purpose or the
 result . It seemed more important to me thinking about when and how this tool can be meaningfully integrated within the design process.
In a self-experiment about the basic structures of programmatics, I searched for correlations and differences in human and technological design series.

The artistic intervention made by Andrea Gassner to mark the anniversary year quotes fragments from Wolf Huber’s most important visual work. Alone the choice of the first name “Wolf“ as the initial typographical visual medium refers semantically to an ambivalent narrative.
In the cycle of images for billboards in the James Joyce Passage iconographical quotations from Huber’s visual work are integrated in the capital letters W O L F. Huber liked to make dramatic use of light, shadow, and space. He preferred garish colours and exaggerated facial expressions.
The work for the glass cube on Jahnplatz continues the game played with the capital letters of the name W O L F but in three dimensions.

Treating the three dimensional grid in the second dimensional digital space was always an intriguing matter for graphic designers, programmers, creative coders and visual artists. In this project (The Alphabetical Room) I have tried to explore the three dimensional grid – to explore its boundaries and limits and to play and lose control on a strictly calculated mathematical grid. Moreover I have tried to examine in which “space” the three dimensional grid acts and reacts when it is created and manipulated in a digital space.

After learning to do color prints from negatives in general, I did a lot of experiments in the darkroom and then eventually started to enjoy exploring subtractive color mixing on photo paper. That’s what I am focused on right now. Therefore I do a lot of multiple exposures; between each of them I use different types of templates, stencils or other things for covering up the to be exposed photo paper. Creating these tools, especially cutting stencils, as well as abstracting shapes, reminded me of doing street art. Finally I found a way of connecting different elements of graffiti with my darkroom work.

A vortex of words and an exercise with type. Endless, aimless, we dive in and use letters to yet again try to verbalize, connect and maybe understand ourselves and each other.

Based on the work of António Lobo Antunes

Poster made with the lyrics of the song “Samuel Mira” by Valete (Prod Baghira & Dr Neo Cortex)

Fragto a flexible typeface:
Fragto is a titling font with an experimental concept. The font has three styles. Fragto is divided into two parts: a fixed part that remains similar across the three styles and a flexible part, different for each style. Thanks to these two parts, the typeface can be used in one or two colours.

Typographic specimen:
To present this typeface, I have created a typographic specimen with the theme of eclectic music. This subject symbolises the formal diversity offered by the Fragto typeface. An artist, representing a different type of music, is assigned to each typeface style: classical music, yodelling (Swiss traditional music) and electronic music.