Amandine Alessandra: News & Projects / Portfolio

Last December, DesignMarketo was invited to show its first retrospection (yes, somewhere between a retrospective and an introspection, it’s a retrospection), DesignMarketo en Barcelona at Otrascosas de Villarrosas gallery in Barcelona in December 2011. The exhibition space looked amazing, designed by
Lars Frideen and Jordi Canudas (waiting for pictures here! Anyone?), and featured a variety of products launched during various events organised, the BookSetting poster being one of them.

On this occasion, DesignMarketo also launched its first book, (designed by DesignMarketo themselves!) presenting designers, products and events from the main events organised so far. It includes an introduction text by Brit Leissler and the photographs I’ve been taking for DesignMarketo those past 3 years.

A4, 64pages, printed laser & Riso as an edition of 100 only.
Get it from here!

The adaptation of Thomas Fuller’s phrase “A book that is shut is but a block” in the previous bookshelves installation was illustrated by my use of the book for their shape and colour, rather than content; as it is, Muller-Brockmann orange grid book is only interesting for its vermilion a4 shape.

Building up the letters also reminded me very much of typesetting, as every type made of colored books had to be blocked with white books, just as it is done in letterpress, where large areas of white space are created by wooden blocks called furniture.

A book that is shut is but a block.

I thought of this experiment as a tautology: shut books that are therefore just blocks used to talk about the fact that shut books are just blocks.

Dictionnaire Suisse
(Les Suisses s’entendent bien parce qu’ils ne se comprennent pas.)

Dizionario Svizzero
(Gli Svizzeri stanno bene assieme perche non capiscono l’uno con l’altro.)

Dicziunari Svizze
(Ils Svizzers van bain ensemen partg’ils na s’inclegian betg.)

Schweizeriche Wörterbuch
(D’Schwitzer hend ses güet mitenand, willsch schich nit verständ.)

(Swiss people get on well because they don’t understand each other)