Studio Mut creates a catalogue for Italian art prize that celebrates up-and-coming artists

Italy-based practice Studio Mut has designed an identity and catalogue for the Museion Prize – a new art prize organised by the museum of contemporary art in Bolzano of the same name. The Museion aims to “bridge many artistic and cultural influences” and the prize awards four up-and-coming artists.

Studio Mut were approached by the museum early on, after deciding the prize would culminate in an exhibition where it would create the catalogue that accompanies the show as part of the exhibition. “We wanted to uncover these new artists as well as this new art prize,” explains the studio.

The first half of the catalogue has been dedicated to the work of the chosen artists and is split into colour-coded sections. “We selected four different colours to differentiate between the artists. This allowed for simple reading,” say Studio Mut. The second part of the book is heavier with texts and essays about the artists and their works and it takes a different tone aesthetically. “Everything is printed in black and white and we chose a bulky book paper for this part.” This contrast creates intrigue for the reader and offers a change in pace between bright visuals and blocks of text.

The juxtaposition continues through the studio’s choice of typefaces in the different sections of the book. The main typeface is Favorit, designed by Dinamo and the second part is simply Garamond, “the most classic of book typefaces”. The cover also alludes to the mix of styles that lie within as it’s a combination of straight, monochrome typography offset by brightly coloured shapes.

“The coloured shapes evoke something electrifying,” says Studio Mut. “The concept of the whole identity is to ’uncover’, and we applied this to the main title with the names of the artists covering each other. The shapes on the catalogue can also be removed as they are printed on transparent plastic.” The basic premise behind the catalogue, and the accompanying website the team also created, is to make it as accessible as possible. The studio explains: “If some young artist has had the thought, ‘I want to be one of the featured artists in the next edition’, then we’ve achieved our goal.”