This alphabet was designed to be a part of Fedrigoni's promotional stand on the Laus Awards 2011 event. Since the stand was thought of as an installation, in which the letters would hang from the ceiling with nylon thread, we searched for a way to allow legibility from different points of view.
4D Typography is the result of intersectioning, in an orthogonal way in space, two extrusions of the same character, which allows the spectator to read it from, minimum, two different positions in space.
The designers constructed the letters from pieces of white card.
When the letters are strung up, the reader can walk around and through words and read them from any direction.
An observer searching to enjoy a particular architecture is forced to move around and through it. The change in perspective generates new spaces in which light acts in different ways. In this case, it is the typography that makes the effort of abandoning its two dimensions to approach the architectural sense. It does not resign with a third dimension; a fourth one is necessary to complete the reading possibilities. By hanging the typography, the reader is allowed to surround the characters in order to understand all their shapes.
This idea started after Lo Siento carried out several identity projects regarding architecture. Afterwards the study decided to investigate and develop several volumetric languages starting from basic graphical concepts. One of these languages was 4D typography. It became a personal project from the studio and we decided to develop the whole alphabet. The creation of this alphabet and mistakes that were made during the creation process lead to new ideas for future projects.
