Munari designed this poster for the opening of the Milan subway in 1964. He thought of the poster as a site-specific piece as it had to be read by a moving train. Munari also considered it as an unlimited graphic work, both in length and height: A poster printed in a single format, but from the combination of individual elements, infinite multiples could be created.

In 1984, Munari remade the posters for an exhibition.

"Momenti dinamici di un logotipo," 1985. Here, Munari used a color photocopier to distort the logo.

this is my first attempt of copying Munari's process. i choose google for the logo as i wanted something contemporary, ubiquitous, and with past logo variations. i'm guessing that Munari made his collages with real physical labels and advertisements, but this didn't make sense for my contemporary remake. so i did a google image search and collected all the logos that came up from the different points in google's history (?) and at different resolutions. i also collected a random assortment of google doodles, from the very first up to today. using the resolution as a scale guide, i collaged the different logos together in the same style as munari, with the descending scale and on a red background. the problem is that the google logo is unbreakable -- designed to work across global devices, browsers, resolutions. it is the most unfunky logo ever.

this version uses the black poster as a model, trying to use contemporary tools to create a 'dynamic moment of a logotype.' i have always loved messing around with photoshop's halftone filters, so this is my attempt at channeling munari's sense of play and creative use of existing technology. however, it doesn't really get at a sense of motion, or feel very contemporary as half tone screens are a thing of the past. i do like that the google o's are ogling you.

here is another version of the dynamic logotype poster as a model. for this, i played around with the illustrator bloat tool to distort the logo. still, i am simply using the tools provided me as a designer and not actually questioning them or breaking them in the same way that munari experimented with a color photocopier. i feel like an adobe tool myself.

however, seeing just one distorted logo alone is rather nicer. its amazing that even this distorted, you can still see the google logo -- as i said above, it is indestructible.

next i tried showing the distortion in motion.

and then i made a painted version of the distorted logo -- in a more obvious way, i have put the hand, my hand, back into the image production. even though this is clumsy and child-like there is something about that aspect of hand-making that is more satisfying than the facile adobe filters. i wonder if i can find my own 'munari' in some combination of digital and handmade.