Javier Unknos’ type-centric designs effortlessly blend digital and analogue techniques

Poring over Javier Unknos’ eclectic portfolio is a multi-layered experience. Hyper-digital type designs are printed on hand-bound books, detailed line drawings find themselves nestled in amongst typed text and film credits are made with collage-like stop-motion. This is because Javier “intervenes”, as he puts it, into his work with analogue methods, with the aim of adding a depth that’s hard to find in purely digital designs.

But while such an array of techniques can be seen throughout Javier’s work, it is still somehow cohesive. That’s perhaps because he doesn’t observe his design work as closed off by each project, but instead as something cyclical: “I look for results beyond the outcome of each individual graphic piece and I conceive aesthetics as a consequence of the creative process and not as an end,” he says. Unsurprisingly, Javier finds inspiration in numerous mediums, including graffiti, nature, architecture and product design. Not only interested in how these facets interact, Javier enjoys seeing how their inherent differences can create interesting visual contrasts.