Lausanne graphic designer Demian Conrad has completed an identity and interior that reference typewriters for a combined library and internet café in Bellinzona, Switzerland.
Conrad collects typewriters and the identity, lettera 9, references a vintage Olivetti model and the street number of the shop.
The machine in question is mounted on one wall alongside a poster created by Conrad for the shop.
Photographs are by Marco Agorri.
More about Demian Conrad on Dezeen: Posters for Brocante (December 2009)
Here's some more information from the designer:
Ondemedia came to me with the need of giving birth to a new space, between a library and an internet cafe. Thinking about books and internet, I analyzed the communicating points and noticed that text is the common denominator between them. Text as per a book or text as hypertext, the innovation lays in their relationship and not in the form.
I connected the text with the world of letters and being a lover and collectionist of type machines I could not resist to pay a homage to Olivetti "lettera22" by Marcello Nizzoli. Such a cult object which inspired me to use the civic number of the building and re-baptized as "lettera9". Inside the space a wall is dedicated to the digital and another to the analogic. The innovation lays in the relationship.
Project: Lettera 9
Client: Ondemedia
Where: Bellinzona - Switzerland
Art direction design: Demian Conrad
Photography: Marco Agorri
What: Logotype, Interior design, Poster
I must admit: I rediscovered libraries recently :)
nicely done – one question:
why repeating the name on the house-wall, as it´s obviously visible through the window.
Probably because people used to walk and not standing in front of shops…
when the lights are off, street front is still voicing the brand
no special statement which related to the shop to write on the wall… that's y keep repeating it's name :P
…it’s obviously visible through the window, but what if you were not directly facing the window from the front?
好东西，我也有相同问题。I have the same question as Alex
Lying amongst a fairly large collection_I’ve a lovely compact blue Lettera 32.
Love the colour of the 22 and what you have done here.
I’ve thought about mounting my whole collection on a wall at an angle.
Lying flush as seen here looks great!
Inspired. Thanks.
I am almost certain that the typeface is actually German by the famous Paul Renner, although it may be Kleukens- both innovated with this very similar sans serif in the late 1930′s.