LetterScapes: A Global Survey of Typographic Installations

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Anna Saccani

Thames & Hudson, New York, 2013, English

Design, General; Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History

7.75 x 10 inches, hardcover, 352 pages, 350 illustrations

ISBN: 9780500241431

Suggested Retail Price: $50.00

From the Publisher. We are bombarded with words today. Public spaces are saturated with a discordant mix of messages, but sometimes a sentence, a word, or even an individual letter stops us in our tracks. LetterScapes features thirty-seven typographic installations in public spaces that demand attention with their graphic impact and communicative power.

The installations can be found throughout the world, from the United States to Europe to Asia. Created in a variety of materials, they vary from huge signs on roofs to a stream of consciousness embedded in a road to structures that appear to be functional or decorative, but are in fact made up of letters of the alphabet.

The book features projects by artists and designers including Joan Brossa, Maya Lin, Lawrence Weiner, Pentagram, and Paula Scher. Interviews provide insight into why the artists chose words over images to transmit the message, how the locations were chosen, how materials and typefaces were selected, and how each work connects with its “landscape.” Specially drawn maps show the locations for all those interested in discovering this unique kind of public art for themselves.

Anna Saccani is an Italian graphic designer. She writes for Casabella and other architecture and design magazines.

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