It’s Freezing in LA! #11: Knowledge Creative direction, Editorial design
IFLA Issue 11 was brought together around the idea of ‘knowledge’. Featured articles explore ways of knowing the climate through science, music, art, cultural tradition and more, while focusing on how such knowledge is produced, stored, communicated and contested.
The front cover and two centre spreads were inspired by Madhuri Karak’s feature ‘knowing from above’. This text reflects on top-down satellite imagery and machine learning advancements, which have enabled us to accurately count trees from space. Concrete poems formed of the single word ‘tree’ create abstract patterns of deforested and afforestated landscapes observable from space. To counterpoint this imagery, a ground perspective has been built from typography, presenting indeginous understandings of an Indonesian forest at the centre of Madhuri Karak’s research, embodying what satellite image advancements cannot account for.
IFLA! 11 welcomed graphic designers Joseph Ménage and Katie Evans as part of a growing roster collaborating on its editorial design. In asking ‘who shares knowledge?’ their design concept was based on the role of ’the critical friend’ – a person who; you lean on for advice, isn’t afraid of sitting with something, and encourages dialogue. This framing informed the layout, colour, illustrations, and typeface choices, as, throughout the issue, these elements collaborate and exchange with one another.
IFLA! 11’s updated heading typeface Affigere is designed by students Alexandre D’Hubert, Daphné Lejeune, and Romain Laurent, and was created around the small collection of wooden typefaces in the ÉSAD letterpress printing workshop.
Creative direction: Matthew Lewis, Nina Carter, Katie Evans, Joseph Ménage.
Cover Design, research and illustration: Matthew Lewis
Editor: Jackson Howarth
Illustrator: Chi Park
