Room Service

From 2011 to 2019, the director of Baden-Baden’s renowned Kunsthalle was Johan Holten, who is known for drawing attention to intriguing positions in contemporary art while also interrogating the role of national art galleries through controversial group exhibitions. Our contribution to this ambitious undertaking was to design exhibition catalogs and a new visual identity for the Kunsthalle.

Room Service traced the historical development of the hotel and its significance in art from the early 19th century to the present. This thematic journey through time was mirrored in the design of the show’s catalog, which draws on a 200-year cross-section of typography. Dozens of bold and italic fonts draw the reader’s attention to titles and captions. They also caught the eye of the New York Type Directors Club, who chose our book to receive a 2015 award for typography.

The catalog is a study in contrasts, with headings, decorative letters and bronze-colored accents running the gamut from bohemian to elegant to eccentric. And in the midst of all this commotion stands the body copy, set in Weidemann, like an island of calm. It is design taken to the limit – like a sugar-frosted pastry, one more bite would be too much.