Project Brief

At Alfalfa Studio in New York, experimental concepts and image-making projects such as the Alfalfabet poster and typeface are an important part of work and play for the design team. Experimenting helps us continue to see design with fresh eyes and grow our creativity.

“Images communicate on more than the visual level; they also stimulate our senses and emotions,” explains Esquer, Alfalfa Studio’s Founder and Creative Director. “While familiar images make us nostalgic for past experience, original ones make us hungry for something yet-to-be experienced.”

The originality and surrealism of the Alfalfabet poster, we hope, will lead to fresh ways of thinking and feeling for all who see it.

Approach

For the Alfalfabet poster, Esquer found inspiration in the optical illusions of Oscar Reutersvärd (1915-2002), M.C. Escher (1898-1972), Lionel Penrose (1898-1972), and Roger Penrose (b. 1931).

“I think it’s safe to say that at a young age every graphic designer was fascinated by their first encounter with Reutersvärd’s Impossible Triangle, Escher’s Impossible Cube, and the Penrose Stairs,” says Esquer. “These impossible objects express something elemental about graphic design: it’s the illusion of space and movement in a static, 2D medium. To me, graphic design is the art of the trickster—and so is writing, for that matter.”

Like a riddle, the Alfalfabet poster is at once playful and profound. Does it portray an inviting world of endless possibilities, or a confusing world of contradictory meanings? Esquer isn’t saying. With a riddler’s wink, he offers only a clue from Carl Jung at the bottom of the poster:

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

Outcome

The Alfalfabet poster arranges the 26 letters in a grid that seems to cover a window on a black abyss. Across the grid and on the gravity-defying surfaces of the letterforms, miniature figures of people and pets amble, run, jump, and perch, as if wandering through a topsy-turvy labyrinth.

Like a riddle, the Alfalfabet poster is at once playful and profound. Does it portray an inviting world of endless possibilities, or a confusing world of contradictory meanings? Esquer isn’t saying. With a riddler’s wink, he offers only a clue from Carl Jung at the bottom of the poster:

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

The Alfalfabet poster is now available for purchase at AlfalfaNewYork.com. Printed in black on ivory-colored premium Italian heavy cardstock, it comes in standard one-sheet movie-poster size: 27 inches x 40 inches (686 mm x 1016 mm). The poster is professionally packaged and securely shipped almost anywhere in the world.

For more details, visit AlfalfaNewYork.com.