“In the poster for Villa Basta, Marenthe Otten scatters casually drawn decorative lettering across a photograph of an elderly woman wearing the traditional clothes of a peasant. The crudely formed letters carry associations of folk art, while also recalling the doodled letterforms found in contemporary work by designers such as Ed Fella in the US and M/M in France. The graphic and photographic layers clash awkwardly, yet the poster still knits together as an image.”

Rick Poynor in Kwintessens

Rick Poynor is a British writer on design, graphic design, typography and visual culture. He began as a general visual arts journalist, working on Blueprint magazine in London. After founding Eye magazine, which he edited from 1990 to 1997, he focused increasingly on visual communication. He is writer-at-large and columnist of Eye, and a contributing editor and columnist of Print (magazine).