Inquiry

• No Honking

  Martin Frostner & Jonas Williamsson

  • 

    Jonas Williamsson & Martin Frostner for the Architectural Association, 2009

  Signage and information graphics natural links to architecture for graphic designers. Our design for Forms of Inquiry and the Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice in Stockholm (2008) derived from Iaspis’ recent relocation. This called for a basic information device for showing how to get to the new address. We liked the idea of making something that could work both as signage and as a way-finding tool within space.

  After examining architectural and typographic references we settled on two different typefaces. In the 1930s, Swedish book designer Akke Kumlien drew the first commercial typeface to be exported from Sweden. Kumlien Antiqua and distributed by the German type foundry Gebrüder Klingspor. The typeface was not released until after the end of the Second World War and failed to gain commercial success. Around the same time early versions of the German DIN typeface arrived in Sweden and likely ‘inspired’ the engineers (designer unknown) to construct the first Swedish road signage typeface (1931), a redrawn version of which was shown at Iaspis.

  •