One Language x VANS

  • Gianluca Alla
VANS approached us to do a typographic workshop, called One Language, at KK Gallery in London. The first thing that come to our mind was a Giovanni Trapattoni’s interview, who, answering a journalist’s question, literally translated an Italian idiom in English. We decided to collect Italian weird idioms and literally translate them in English and the result was a series of weird quotes, as the meaning was lost. Together with the workshop participants, we designed a bespoke typeface to write the new idioms. We produced more than 900 glyphs. Participants were invited to design letters with tapes and stickers on pre-printed sheets of paper with some basic shapes. The tape was the perfect material for this workshop, because it can connect two things in a rough way. The Italian idioms translated in English: + Don’t say cat if you don’t have it in the sack + Speak like you eat + To sew on a button + You’re making me see green mice + Not all doughnuts come out with a hole + (She/He) has eaten the leaf + I know my chickens + So much goes the cat to the lard that she leaves the paw print + All the tangles come up on the comb + Don’t flip the omelette + Have you got a straw tail? + Laugh laugh that mum made gnocchi + I’ve got my legs that do Giacomo Giacomo + You are outside like a balcony

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    Kesselskramer London

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    VANS

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