Strange Altars
Strange Altars continues my direct interventions into Josef Müller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems in Graphic Design, treating the modernist grid not as a neutral structure but as a surface shaped by authority and belief. Working on torn book pages, I overprint large serif letterforms across diagrams, typographic constructions, and instructional layouts.
The words that dominate each page are drawn from death metal band names — Strange, Black Curse, Malefic, Spectral Wound, Ulcerate, Granite, and others. Scaled to overwhelm the composition, they cut through the grid's measured logic and disrupt the clarity the manual was designed to teach. The serif and decorative qualities of the typography deliberately oppose the restraint and functionalism associated with modernist design, introducing ornament into a system built to eliminate it.
The grid remains visible, but it no longer governs the page. Instruction becomes backdrop. Structure becomes surface.
Size:
Source:
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8.12 x 11.5 inches
Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Josef Müller-Brockmann (1981)
2025 (ongoing)