Manifesto

MANIFESTO FOR THE LIBERATION OF LETTERS

1. Letters are born free, just as humans are social creatures but also individuals. It is time to celebrate the beauty in the geometry of which they are composed, and break away from the masses on the subject of the alphabet.

2. Letters are born as architectural symbols to be used in crafting new landscapes of every formal combination, but Western society has rendered them slaves to function. They are not necessary only to read or to write, but also to become pure symbols, useful to feed fantasy.

3. Letters possess their own individuality, like the faces of men, grouped together by cast or race, but in reality are expressions of personalities that are never repeated. Like each flake of snow, every representation of typography must be unique, not reproducible, not categorizable, not repeatable. Like the sunset of a love story.

4. Letters possess their own intrinsic beauty, which must be celebrated, highlighted and raised up as artistic artifacts. Each letter must become a work of art, marrying design and instinct, technique and wit, cartoon and spontaneous association.

5. Letters are fragments of a beautiful kaleidoscope, imaginative and glowing. The always eternal movement, which can only be grasped by eyes capable of marveling. These are our revenge against the gray of melancholy, against the black of logic, against the haze of perception.

6. The opposite of a pearl necklace, where the silk thread creates a useful link, let us free these singular beauties from slavery, from their obliged role. They have dignity equal to that of portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and abstract works.

7. Just as animals are not our food, letters are not our slaves. Let us evolve their existence beyond mere writing, which will always exist, just as reading will always exist. But regarding these singular graphic artifacts with new eyes, beyond their humble everydayness, as a way to discover their unrevealed richness.

8. Letters are our regressive world, our first contact with codified knowledge, and the associated design is the bridge which has accompanied us in the construction of communication. Welcome, kids scribbles and flirting verses, nursery rhymes and improbable associations. D for dream, but also for donut. G for gamble, but also for God.

9. Just like letters, also numbers and every other alphanumeric symbol scattered throughout the languages of this planet will become objects of attention, and will be celebrated first for their graphic forms, then for their linguistic functions. They will no longer be marks of ink on paper, but graphic works painted on cloth, sculpted out of marble, steel, plastic, wood.

10. Letters are no longer just simple worker bees, but, through this artistic collaboration, become queen bees. The honey of their beauty will sweeten our outlook, opening the doors to a new world.