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
Project Tags
Companies
Kesselskramer London
- Advertising
VANS
- Retail