Pedro Diniz Reis – O Livro dos AA

Working with linguistic signs is one of the basic tenets of Pedro Diniz Reis’s work, taking the form of written or spoken letters, sounds and words, forming rhythms and compositions. Work that is very sympathetic to graphic designers, as we share the same vocabulary of elements, and similar syntax.

Pedro proposed a work that shows an entire Portuguese dictionary’s entries, but prints only the letter ‘a’ where it occurs in each word, making the rest of the alphabet invisible. An intriguing and thought-provoking rhythm, altering on every page of the resulting 400-page book, comes into existence.

Pedro’s idea was of course that Livro dos AA (“Book of A”) would stand in for an entire encyclopaedia in 26 volumes, each one containing a full dictionary, yet each one only containing one letter. Through a combination of automated generative design, digital printing and hand-bookbinding, we were able to realise Pedro’s vision and produce the complete encyclopaedia  AA – ZZ as an artist’s edition.


For Culturgest, Lisbon, 2010 – 2011. 344 pp., 21×29.7 cm.