London's Kerning Map, 1996
NB: Studio was approached by the International Society of Typographic Designers to create a piece of work to be exhibited as part of The London Design Festival 2006, for an exhibition entitled My City, My London. The exhibition celebrated the place of graphic design in contemporary visual culture and its intention was to explore typography in the visual world of the capital. Their response to the brief was based on the distinct layout and style of the London A to Z (designed and produced in 1936) and how the words and letters are squeezed and “kerned” into streets and roads. To show off this unique typography—and to show just how much the words and names represented the intricate nature of London’s streets—NB: Studio removed all non-typographical data. The result is a skeletal map of London’s kerning; a typographic reflection of how we fit into a city.
