Typographic exhibition conjures a constellation of new words

You don't see a lot of design exhibitions devoted to the art of language manipulation, but World Within Words, currently on show in Malaysia, is just that. The creation of Sergio Alves and Henrique Nascimento, the show sets out to be "a place where words merge to create new words, where objects of everyday life are placed to have new functions and meanings, and the sequence of how we create a sentence is rethought to make us think."

The show features words and sentences taken from an edition of the local newspaper, Malaysiakini, cast using Akzidenz-Grotesk as the main typeface, in a range of weights and styles. The designers decided to create new portmanteau words from these clippings; as a result, they say, "a constellation of new words emerge, along with new definitions and objects [...] they define the new everyday."

An associated 'World Within Words publication' features deconstructions and explanations of all the thoughts, methods and planning behind the exhibition.

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