Chicago Design Museum — Exhibition Identity, Environment, Materials, Catalogue

Architects Marcin Szef and Ian Christopher Thomas designed the physical exhibition in response to paper's qualities — fibrous, planar, typically unnoticed. These characteristics presented an opportunity to formally explore materiality in a manner not unlike that of the origami artist or packaging engineer. With simple folds, planar form becomes dimensional. My roll for the project was designer and director of the exhibition's graphics working with the Museum's Executive Creative Director. Here, within the identity and graphics program, the grid defines the field and creates spatial opportunities to contort planar, linear form rendering defined character. Much like the built environment of the exhibit, the positive and negative spaces are equal to each other. The placement of each letter and it's unique characteristics are defined by classical proportions responding by what appears before and after each character — providing optimal, gridded horizontal relationships. Much like the built environment of the exhibit, the positive and negative spaces are equal to each other. The placement of each letter and it's unique characteristics are defined by classical proportions responding by what appears before and after each character — providing optimal, gridded horizontal relationships.