Project Projects was commissioned in summer 2010 to design a comprehensive identity and graphic system for SALT, a new cultural institution in Istanbul. Merging a contemporary art space, an architecture and design gallery, and a scholarly archive, SALT promotes research and experimental thinking. This mission prompted a meditation on the nature of institutional identity in a world of continuous cultural change.

The institution’s name has a unique position within the identity system. The letters S-A-L-T are not represented as a formal logo mark; instead, they are embedded within a custom-designed typeface, Kraliçe, which was created by type designer Timo Gaessner for Project Projects. Equipped primarily with this typeface, the institution strategically disperses its name within the language it uses everyday.

Finally, an ongoing curatorial program initiated by Project Project takes the identity system itself as a distributed exhibition space. Every four months, a new designer will be invited to reimagine the letters S-A-L-T and thereby modulate the identity’s look across all media. The first designer selected is Dries Wiewauters, whose experimental type designs explore alternative technologies and histories of typographic production; his version of Kraliçe will be exhibited from September to December 2011. In these ways and others, the typeface may come to find usages and audiences beyond its original context for SALT.

Watch lecture on SALT identity
View SALT website on projectprojects.com

Visit saltonline.org
Link to Timo Gaessner
Link to Dries Wiewauters
Link to Sulki & Min
Link to Alpkan Kırayoğlu