Exhibition catalog for "Morcos Key Makes/Reads"

Identifier:AAR.EC.0243.2

Publication dates:2020

contributor: Wael Morcos, Jon Key

Description:Catalog for "Morcos Key Makes/Reads," an exhibition on view at the Center for Book Arts October 9-December 12, 2020.

"The Center for Book Arts 2020 Faculty Fellows are Wael Morcos and Jon Key. In 2018, they launched Morcos Key, an award winning Brooklyn-based graphic design studio with a hybrid practice operating between social impact, pedagogy, and creative form. The studio collaborates with arts & cultural institutions, non-profits, and commercial enterprises in North America and the Middle East.

"Their investment in queer and diasporic identities has guided them in developing a process rooted in community-building within multicultural contexts. To facilitate understanding while avoiding oversimplification, they leverage design choices as guideposts between the injustices of the past and a more equitable future. With a strong emphasis on language and letter design, Morcos Key translates clients’ stories and missions into visual identity, print, and digital systems. Much of the work produced by the studio is premised on the interplay of text, language, heritage, and function.

"Morcos Key Makes/Reads takes viewers through a selection of print materials designed by Wael Morcos and Jon Key: journals, books, newsprints, zines, type-specimens and more. These books are displayed alongside selections from their personal library, demonstrating the conceptual and aesthetic influence on the duo’s design process and creative practice." -- description from the Center for Book Arts