Letters Beyond Form: Chicago Types, an exhibition at the Design Museum of Chicago and part of Art Design Chicago, was a citywide collaboration initiated by the Terra Foundation for American Art. It explores how letterforms shape meaning across Chicago’s diverse communities, highlighting alternative modernisms rooted in love, safety, and care. Featuring work by designers, graffiti writers, and community researchers, the exhibition showcases tools, ephemera, and contemporary typography.
The exhibition design contrasts the everyday with the revered. Black gridwall—typically used in retail—is recontextualized as a modular display system and visual reference to typographic grids, establishing a three-inch structure for organizing content. Behind it, large-scale letter and word-images are painted directly onto the wall in matte finishes, each layered with a clear gloss outline of its italicized form. Spray-painted stencils on wood panels nod to Chicago’s graffiti culture, while etched black plexiglass notes filled with white acrylic further balance utilitarian and refined aesthetics—amplifying the exhibition’s focus on the physicality, context, and cultural resonance of Chicago type.
- Exhibition Design
- Lauren Meranda
- Graphic Design
- Niamh Murphy
- Curator
- Amira Hegazy
- Curatorial Assistant
- Paolina Montes
- Project Manager
- Haoyu Lu
- Curatorial Intern
- Liana Fu
- Engagement Fellow
- Gillian Giles
- Executive Director
- Tanner Woodford
- Executive Director, Operations/Programming
- Kevin Reader
- Photographer
- Cenìnye Harris
- Project Manager
- Lauren Boegen
- Typeface Designer
- Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh
- Preparator
- Katelyn Patton
- Fabrication
- Northeastern Illinois University Art + Design Department
