ISIA U at Galleria Nazionale Delle Marche

In 2023, I became fascinated by a style of minimalist editorial design used throughout European design schools. One university I constantly ran across in research was ISIA Urbino, a school specializing in Editorial Design, Photography, and Illustration nestled in the hills of the out-of-the-way Italian region of Le Marche. Surprisingly, my university's Italian study abroad program was in the same city, Urbino. I flew across the ocean and visited the student exhibit lining the halls of the cities palace. The students painstakingly studied the irregular inscriptions across the courtyard walls and attempted to build consistent, digital typefaces from them. I interviewed the students, photographed the exhibit, and wrote an article on their work.

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The Exhibit

The exhibit highlighted the students type design with animations on large screens that show photographs of the original inscriptions and individual letterforms of the final typefaces. Next to the screens were paper brochures containing the final typefaces.
Radim Pesko and Jonathan Pierini were the instructors who organized the exhibit.
There were blown up letterforms from different stages of development.
More of the exhibitions various animations.
Here is a close look at the original renaissance inscriptions visible through a window in the exhibit. You can see in this photo an example of the variation in x-height by looking at the two R's.
The new typefaces line the walls of the exhibit.
A more distant look at the inscription shows visible variation in the width and x-height of various letters, like V, A, T, and E.
In a different section of the exhibit illustration students drew renaissance inspired work.
A shot of the exhibit taken from the entrance.
The inscription sits above a colonnade.

The exhibit highlighted the students type design with animations on large screens that show photographs of the original inscriptions and individual letterforms of the final typefaces. Next to the screens were paper brochures containing the final typefaces.

Radim Pesko and Jonathan Pierini were the instructors who organized the exhibit.

There were blown up letterforms from different stages of development.

More of the exhibitions various animations.

Here is a close look at the original renaissance inscriptions visible through a window in the exhibit. You can see in this photo an example of the variation in x-height by looking at the two R's.

The new typefaces line the walls of the exhibit.

A more distant look at the inscription shows visible variation in the width and x-height of various letters, like V, A, T, and E.

In a different section of the exhibit illustration students drew renaissance inspired work.

A shot of the exhibit taken from the entrance.

The inscription sits above a colonnade.

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