The graphic language of Eduardo Chillida as a conceptual contribution to the typographic identity of the University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU

Abstract

This research project funded by the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, UPV/EHU-PES 11/31, is intended as part of its strategic research programme. This project is intended to create a typographic corporate visual identity for the University of The Basque Country, UPV/EHU. The conceptual starting-point is the need to provide the UPV/EHU with a set of corporate visual identity characteristics using a meaningful font style, and the approach has been provided by Eduardo Chillida’s aesthetic reflections on the nature of form. Chillida’s graphic production shows a subtle coincidence with vital principles for typographic creation, in terms of the approach to dynamic and constructive forms, in which geometric rigour is overcome by a kind of organic-ness that arises from the very heart of the structure—“cursus”; by a vital force that imprints the modulated action of the gesture—“ductus”; by the dialectic between what is full and what is empty—form/counter-form; by impulse and spontaneity—character; and by the affirmation of a visual language in the particular culture of the medium in which one is living—identity.