Åbäke are a design studio of four practitioners based in London, with their main interest being the collaborative possibilities that design allows. It is this social aspect that is emphasised in their exhibition and events practice, offering individual perspectives on design components as language and composition. They work with a wide range of clients including singers, bands, artists, universities, architects, museums, furniture designers, fashion designers, film production companies, art trusts and magazines. Åbäke also work under a number of other guises, for example they co-edit and design the magazine Sexymachinery, an architectural production, and co-direct a clothing and record label called Kitsuné.
Åbäke’s Limb Typography is an interactive sculpture that allows people, as its name suggests, to use it for constructing the alphabet and whole words using their arms, or observe other people doing so. Its performative approach to letter type design is all the more a curious activity when considering that the designs can’t be seen directly by the ‘designer’, as the sculpture facilitates an activity at the same time as obscuring your vision of it.
The poster is also accompanied by a poster that presents images of the Japanese alphabet produced with the Limb Typography. Emphasising the functionality of the poster for a certain demographic, it will be available for sale cheaper to Japanese people.
Åbäke have also presented the next stage in their ongoing Slow Alphabet project, which presents a design for a single letter of the alphabet for one page inserted within existing publications and periodicals. For On Purpose a letter has been inserted within the Arnolfini brochure, and there is also a page within design & architecture magazine icon (www.iconeye.com), available in the Arnolfini bookshop.
They have also designed one of the three adverts (frieze magazine) for the exhibition.
A1 Limb Typography Poster: £10/£1 for Japanese people
http://a.b.a.k.e.free.fr/
http://www.thearamgallery.org/2008/03/07/total-trattoria/