Instituto Cervantes commissioned us to create the visual identity, exhibition and book design for ‘ILUSTRAD/AS. A look at female creation in contemporary illustration’. The exhibition, curated by Matilde Rodríguez, is showing at Instituto Cervantes New York offering an in-depth look at the work of contemporary female illustrators; celebrating the breadth of their outputs.

The design concept homes in on a concise, typographic expression of the issues at play surrounding women and the creative industries. In Spanish, gender is defined with /OS or /AS at the end of the word. The use of the ending to determine gender is in itself an ironic paradox, in which gender continues to be kept at the end and behind a slash, that due to its inclination seems to “push” it. Our goal with the visual identity is to play through negative space with (in)visibility, placing the letter “A” as the “invisible” protagonist and generating a game of false perception of what seems not to be seen, but it’s actually there.