Photography’s Multiple Roles: Art Document Market Science

A catalogue documenting a museum’s permanent collection is often a parade of similarly presented but unrelated greatest hits—where design plays a minimal role in clarifying content. In Photography’s Multiple Roles, our team structured the presentation of a contemporary photography museum’s collection by usage—art, document, market, and science—in an effort to enrich the reader’s understanding by grouping and connecting the works.

The design and typography of the book reinforce this structure. Helvetica, the museum’s house font, is used for all general texts, while fonts with a more specific persona are used in the four lead essays. A four-square grid structures the book, making its way into the front matter, chapter openers, and essays.