Branding and collateral for Seattle Art Museum's 2016 special exhibition, Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic.
Kehinde Wiley is one of the leading American artists to emerge in the last decade, reworking the grand portraiture traditions.
Dala Floda by Commercial Type I chose as the title treatment for its roots in the typefaces of the Renaissance but with the added twist of being in stencil letterform, presenting it in a refreshed and modern way. This mirrors what Wiley sets out to achieve in his portraits. I chose a cyan as the colour palette, drawing it out of his intricate and highly stylized floral background of the primary image, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (2013). The artist’s name was often presented in a fashion magazine masthead treatment where the subject is brought forward and obscures the title letters, creating depth.
