One Of A Type

For the year of Palermo as Italian Capital of Culture in 2018, Ciao Ciao Studio organised a month-long pop-up typography exhibition during the festival, inviting international designers to each contribute a single letter of the alphabet drawn from their own reading of the city.

Studio Studio was given the letter H. The proportions were held close to those of established, familiar typefaces, so that the historical register of the city would remain audible inside the letter, and the crossbar was replaced by a pointed arch lifted directly from the arch forms found in several of Palermo’s historically significant buildings. The serifs are built up more heavily than the rest of the construction would seem to call for, and sit slightly off the expected weight, in a way that returns to the eclecticism of the city itself.

The full set of letters, contributed by all the designers, was assembled into a single dissonant alphabet for the exhibition, organised by Ciao Ciao Studio under the patronage of Palermo Italian Capital of Culture and AIAP, the Italian Association of Visual Communication Design.