L’homenatge a una sola lletra és un homenatge a tota la cultura. The one-letter tribute is a tribute to the whole culture. —Joan Costa
The context
This typographic poster was designed for the occasion of the collective exhibition Tipografia’m, presented at the MuVIM in Valencia, Spain collecting the work of 35 designers. It is the second time Laura exhibit there, the first was back in 2005 when Carlos Pérez and the much-missed Paco Bascuñán as the curator, who invited Laura to participate at the D’après: Versions, ironies i divertiments exhibition. This time the curators were Begoña Jordá and Nereida Tarazona and it was organized by the “Máster en Artes Gráficas” from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería del Diseño de la Universitat Politécnica de València.
The concept
In the words of the curators: “The exhibition bears this title because it focuses on the character M, the thirteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet. Starting from this letter, we seek to experiment graphically and conceptually using any technique to vindicate the formal role of the letter in design and art. Isolating any character from its usual context (the word, the line, the paragraph, the page…), we try to move it away from the domain of linguistics and bring it closer to the field of the visual, to intervene in it as a pure object. formal. All this will give greater visibility to the work of so many type designers who, with their effort and talent, have given a special and unique character to each designed letter M.
Tipografia’m, is the creative vindication of this feeling. The letter before being written, in its individual identity as a pure pictographic form. Not subject to a code and laws that have been imposed on it.”
M for Modular
Laura’s idea came after observing the anatomy of the capital M which is modular, symmetrical, solid, wide, present … so she decided to represent it as an architectural element, without neglecting the aesthetic appearance of the composition. To achieve this, each «M» of the composition is based on an evolution of the previous one, where reduced counter forms, accompanied by a rotation, becoming something else, more abstract, losing its more orthodox figuration.
She connected this poster to her ongoing «Lettering Extravaganza» poster series, initiated at her residence at the AGA LAB in Amsterdam.