Ornamento como estrutura
Rita Lamas
This work responds to a brief for a printed publication made exclusively from texts about design and typography, without images. It investigates the relationship between structure, ornament and language, taking as its starting point the principles of the New Typography and the Swiss modernist tradition — the grid, asymmetry, clarity and the rational organization of information. Starting from the modernist rejection of ornament, it inverts that hierarchy: what first appears as decoration becomes the publication’s very typographic structure.
The publication begins by establishing a ruled typographic structure, inspired by modular logic and the modernist grid, which is progressively contaminated by ornament. Through the relationship between medieval typography, marginalia and negative space, ornament stops being decorative and starts to build the page’s structure. Letters are gradually hidden, deformed or replaced by the space around them, questioning what remains of language when linguistic form is no longer immediately legible.
The result is an inversion of the hierarchy between form and decoration: ornament becomes a typographic system and the degradation of the grid becomes a method of composition. Through overlap, erosion, saturation and repetition, the publication also highlights the cultural and historical character of graphic styles, understanding typography not as a transparent vehicle for information but as a form of discourse and meaning-making, and exposing the social paradigms that can lead to a “whitewashing” of design.
Imprint / Technical Rider:
Year: 2025
Dimensions: 180 × 240 mm; 24 pages
Materials: Recycled paper 90 g.
Production and finishing: Two wire staples.
Resources and credits: Jan Tschichold, The Principles of the New Typography; Mr. Keedy, The Global Style; Andrew Blauvelt, Under the Surface of Style; Katherine McCoy, Typography as Discourse.
Curricular Unit:
Advanced Studies in Editorial Design and Typography (1st year)
Supervising Professor:
Mário Moura
Keywords: Typography, Ornament, Grid, Editorial Design
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