Frida: Making Her Self Up, V&A

Arguably one of the most revolutionary and striking figures in art, Frida Kahlo requires little introduction. Famously married to muralist Diego Rivera, when Kahlo passed away in 1954, Rivera locked away her possessions in the Blue House, Mexico City for over 50 years. But earlier this month, the V&A opened the doors to Frida: Making Her Self Up – an exhibition designed to showcase a selection of these previously unseen artefacts – many of which have never travelled outside of Mexico.

Alongside an evocative exhibition design by stage designer Tom Scutt and architects Gibson Thornley, the team at BOB Design were brought on board to bring the 2D graphics of the exhibition to life.

Considering that Frida Kahlo spent much of her life in a wheelchair, Tom Scutt and the architects also wanted the exhibition to be really inclusive. We found a set of typefaces [GZA and Gråbenbach] with elements that echoed the angular shape we were looking for, but we then had to consider how the type would look and read to someone in a wheelchair.

The V&A actually held focus groups where people would come and look at the object labels while sitting and standing, to gauge at what level it was readable. They also conducted interviews with people in wheelchairs to help define the hanging heights of paintings and labels.

The contrast of the typography also needed to be high enough to help people with reading difficulties, who need a very distinctive start and end when reading something. There was quite a lot of requirements. We received documents detailing all the different type sizes, to make sure we didn’t go below or above certain measurements. — BOB Design