I was very excited to be part of the fourth edition of Poster X Poem. I was asked to design a poster containing Matei Vișniec’s poem "Înotătorul" (The swimmer).

Few words on the design: once again, I wanted to expand my comfort zone, since my main focus is lettering, this time I thought to go a bit more on the illustration side. I wrote the poem by hand, took notes, tried to find out the answer to the millennia-old question "what did the author wanted to say", but also found my own interpretation of the poem and concluded that it could've started (in a less poetic and subtle way), with "there is a poster designed by no one", or "there is a symphony composed by no one", etc.

So I interpreted the city as a metaphor for an idea or the act of creation. I kept the illustration pretty basic, I wanted it to feel like an illusion or a vague mental picture of a distant place. The typeface used is OTC Hitomi 34 by Ograda.co Once I placed the text, it stayed. Its urban vibe and the ink traps have a nice connection with the "missing" elements from the poem.