A literary identity built on rhythm, clarity and restraint.

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The visual identity for A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, an exhibition exploring Gertrude Stein’s role as a writer, collector, and cultural catalyst, was informed by the formal qualities of her prose. Clarity, repetition, and a resistance to fixed meaning shaped a graphic language that was spare and typographically led.

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Text was treated as a compositional device – wrapping columns, shifting across surfaces, and establishing rhythm through the exhibition space. Repetition was used not just to create structure, but to unpick it – mirroring Stein’s own use of linguistic return as both anchor and disruption. The design maintained clarity while allowing for a subtle sense of semantic drift – a refusal of final meaning, held within a formally controlled system. The typographic choices were grounded in literary reference points, drawing on conventions of printed matter from Stein’s lifetime.

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The accompanying materials carried the same sensibility. The handout echoed the typographic system of the exhibition – clear, literary, and carefully paced. Key art and digital assets were adapted with minimal intervention, retaining the tone and typographic clarity of the wider identity. Across all applications, the design remained consistent in its approach: understated, intelligent, and grounded in the relationship between text and meaning.

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Design: Billie Temple & Hurtwood Books
Gallery: Nahmad Projects

Installation photography: Stephen White & Co