"Digital information never exists in a perfect form, but is, instead, an idealized abstraction of physical matter, which, by its material nature and the laws of physics, has chaotic properties and often ambiguous states. […] Lo-fi imperfections are embraced […] as a form of practical exploration and research that examines materials through their imperfections and malfunctions."
Perfection is a myth and reality is messy. A perfectionist approach to design is therefore difficult, not to say impossible or unattainable. However, the digital and human errors inherent in the design process can open up unexpected perspectives. With this in mind, Broken Transitions is a trilogy of editorial artifacts that explores the creative potential of error. Based on the concept of transduction between media (between digital and physical formats), the project highlights how errors, often seen as anomalies to be corrected, can become poetic elements or engines of meaning and expression.
This editorial project is developed around three printed objects, which address different categories of error: unintended, unintentional errors, resulting from technical, human or material limitations; reclaimed or recovered errors, discovered by chance and deliberately preserved; provoked errors, resulting from deliberate sabotage or misuse of technology.
Each volume has its own graphic identity, shaped by its particular relationship with a typology of error, combining slants, misalignments, flaws, overlapping pages and experiments in typographic manipulation. Ultimately, the project questions the pursuit of perfection in design processes, inviting us to see errors and anomalies as creative opportunities.
This issue explores accidental errors in transduction, those that occur due to technical, human and material limitations. Using misalignments, pixelation, and awkward word spacing, the layout echoes the gap between the digital ideal and the physical reality.
Here, errors are discovered by chance and deliberately embraced. This issue plays with overlays, paper scan accidents, tilted pages, manipulated letter spacing as aesthetic and conceptual tools.
Last but not least, this issue concerns deliberate sabotage of systems and materials by corrupting files, hacking tools, or misusing technology, in order to build a form of creativity outside the rules of the interfaces. Visually, it's the most radical: extreme tilting, glitch and cryptic text spacing.