2009 SEGD Design Awards: A Divine Exterior

R2 Design (Porto, Portugal) developed these Honor Award-winning wall graphics for the Hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, an 18th-century, Lisbon structure that had served as a chapel for more than two centuries but had reopened in 2008 as a gallery that featured contemporary Portuguese artists. R2 designers Lizá Ramalho and Artur Rebelo said, “The dual presence of divinity on one hand, and popular culture on the other, led us to play with Portuguese idioms that refer to God. These popular expressions highlight the diversity of … proverbs and expressions we say almost mechanically in our daily lives. Because of the chapel’s hidden location, we wanted to create an environment that would provoke passersby to find out what’s inside.”

R2’s environmental graphics create the illusion of the walls seemingly emitting the 3-D graphics. Ramalho said the firm experimented with different scales to ensure typography emphasized the graphic impact. The design team selected Hoefler & Frere Jones’ Knockout, a sans-serif typeface that Rebelo said offers “many possibilities.”
Pedrita and Pavilhão 3 (Lisbon) handled the fabrication and installation, respectively.