Salt's ever-changing identity takes an angular new shape for 2013

SALT is a cultural institution in Istanbul that merges a contemporary art space, architecture and design gallery and a scholarly archive; designed to promote research and experimental thinking across art and design. Straightforward enough, but how do you go about branding an institution that operates in a constantly shifting and evolving landscape and aims to promote a diverse range of? The idea of a permanent static identity just doesn’t seem to fit.

That’s the thinking behind Project Projects’ ongoing identity for SALT, for which they invite quarterly contributors to manipulate and reinterpret Kraliçe, a custom typeface that serves as the institute’s sole identity. There is no logo. Thus far the list of contributors includes Sulki & Min, Dries Wiewauters and Thirst, with the latest iteration coming from ECAL student Anna Bitzer.

Bitzer’s manipulation of Kraliçe takes the form of a custom algorithm that hacks OpenType scripting to display different iterations of the institution’s name. The results are remarkably effective, maintaining the coherence of the original typeface but bastardising it with glitches in the letterforms, contained neatly within the cap height. Check back in in three months time to see what SALT’s ever-changing face looks like mid-2013.