raúl peña_graphic designer:

type specimen poster: the Janson and Baskerville typefaces

Description: With these posters I wanted to introduce the Janson and Baskerville typefaces in a new and intriguing way. To do this, I communicate aspects of the history of the typefaces and the lives of the people who created them, through the use of metaphor.

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Design and music

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Description: This is an exploration of confluence between music and graphic design. These posters are the visual result of a process that balances logic, chance and intuition. Using the text "Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books" by Georges Perec, as well as a short list of books that I’ve read, I devised a system/game that involves: a database, parts of speech, musical notes, colors and shapes. George Perec’s text serves as a database from which words are drawn to create a series of titles. The parts of speech present in the titles of the books I’ve read provide the semantic structure for those new titles. Having assigned a musical note to each letter of the alphabet, the letters present in the new titles provide sequences of notes that constitute the foundations for the music pieces (see links below each image). In turn, each letter is assigned color and shape. This provides a starting point for the visual explorations.

Inspired by music

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Description: This is a series of posters inspired by the experience of making music.

Type in motion

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Description: This summer I attended the poster workshop at The Basel School of Design, in Switzerland. The project consisted of designing a poster for an exhibition about typography in motion, in Zürich. The process for this solution included constructing a "model" with cardboard sticks and photographing it in a variety of ways to achieve depth, and a sense of movement. I thought it would be interesting to express motion by having the outlines of the letterforms—not the entire letters—do all the movement.

The Ink Monkey

This animal is common in the northen regions and is about four or five inches long. It is endowed with an unusual instinct. The eyes are like carnelian stones, and its hair is jet black, sleek and flexible, as soft as a pillow. It is very fond of eating thick china ink, and whenever people write, it sits with folded hands and crossed legs, waiting till the writing is finished, when it drinks the remainder of the ink. When done, it squats down as before, and does not frisk about unnecesarily.

Wang Tai-Hai (1791) The Book of Imaginary Beings, by Jorge Luis Borges

Interpretative poster

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Description: These posters visualize a short story in a unique, non-literal manner. (The text for the story is provided below the last image). The idea is to interpret and enrich, rather than re-tell. In this way, the mystery of the written text isn't diminished. Presented are three solutions. On the first one, lines represent instances of people writing, and letters stand for moments in which monkeys drink. On the second solution, type represents time duration, while color and form express a kind of constant expectancy, or a combination of hunger and satiation. On the third solution, the large type expresses the moments of action, when the monkey drinks ink. The small type represents the moments of "monkey in-action," or the moments in which the monkey waits while the people write. Please click on the images for a larger version; this will allow you to view the small typography.

Design philosophy

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Description: Design is circulation. It acts as oxygen, clearing paths and preventing blockages, helping citizens circulate the city and readers circulate the page. It is also blood it self: a flow of experience between the senses, the brain and the heart. Design is about connection. It connects ideas, emotions, places, times and people. It is a messenger, a negotiator. It crosses boundaries and creates bridges between strangers. Through design I intend to nurture my nature; to honor my innate desire to create.