The artist and designer Wolfgang Schmidt developed his own system of Lebenszeichen (“signs of life”) using the human body as a starting point. His goal was to “measure the cosmos of experience”. In a timeframe spanning from 1972 to 1979 he finished 262 out of 893 planned signs. We combined them into a standard dingbats-like font file. Each upper- and lowercase letter of the roman alphabet is assigned one sign. Additionally ligatures are used to display variants of the same sign, as Schmidt had drawn them. This works by repeatedly typing the same letter. Project initiated by Maxim Weirich.

“Snake, sun, cloud, hand, triangle” continues our exploration into symbol based fonts and especially the possibilities of symbol-based ligatures. After an initial research, five characters responding to each of the vowels were chosen. Snake, sun, cloud, hand, triangle. Each of them with a set of characteristics and unique properties which they follow each time they interact. The work was first shown as an installation in the exhibition “Pictograms, Signs of Life emojis : The Society of the Signs” at Leopold Hoesch Museum in Düren, Germany.

The exhibition Pictograms, Signs of Life, Emojis: The Society of Signs was presented at the Leopold-Hoesch Museum and the Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg in 2020 and 2021. To extend the research initiated by the exhibition, the website Society of Signs (SOS) was launched. This platform is dedicated to the ongoing exploration and study of pictography. The evolving web archive features a diverse collection of works focused on pictograms and language systems, offering a resource for further investigation. Concept for the website by Gruppo Due, project initiated by Maxim Weirich and Edgar Walthert.

Ciao is a typographic research project developed by Gruppo Due, exploring the connection between writing, voice, and visual communication. The project investigates how the physicality of spoken language can be representedthrough type, creating a typeface that responds to the rhythms and qualities of verbal expression. Ciao bridges the gap between auditory Descriptions.rtf and visual language, offering a new perspective on typographic design. The project was funded by Berner Design Stiftung and Kultur Stadt Bern as part of an ongoing research into typography and its performative potential