A Conversation with Oriana Nuzzi and Faride Mereb, Letra Muerta
Tuesday, Jul 07, 2026
"There are as many ways of organizing things as there are people," explains Faride Mereb, co-director of Letra Muerta: a New York City design studio and archive center organized in partnership with co-director Oriana Nuzzi. While recognizing that traditional archival structures, such as ordering by title or chronology, have their place, Letra Muerta's approach emphasizes accessing knowledge associatively, making connections with information leading to new ways of understanding materials. Founded as a publishing house in Venezuela in 2014, Letra Muerta opened their NYC location in 2022. Letra Muerta specializes in book publication, cataloging and archiving with scope extending from books to ephemera, photobooks, literary materials and catalogs. Their physical space uniquely includes an archive, reading room and reference library, where communities, students and researchers access and interact with materials.
Their 'open shelves' philosophy recognizes that among the many modalities for research and organization of information, intuitive knowledge can be powerfully utilized to foster connectivity. Oriana describes how people researching in the Letra Muerta archive can "access information about materials in different ways that are more sensorial and visual, " building associations to create new and unexpected meanings. As alumni of the Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-MN), Faride and Oriana described how learning and relational experiences from the Seminar provided insights "with regard to how people in the trade understand archives in the US in terms of position, choices, trade." While written information has been privileged in books and archives, Faride emphasizes that "there are more ways we can see things and associate things other than written language. There are many ways this can work, and we (Letra Muerta) have a compendium of things that can also been understood through visual literacy."
For Oriana and Faride, materiality often surfaces as the starting point for researching and organizing projects, exhibits, and publications. Exemplifying this approach, their alternative cataloging project Re: Regenerate (....) was designed to demonstrate different ways of accessing materials through presentation, with video, overlapping/overlapped displays, and inclusion of artifacts and personal ephemera. Through framing the materials within new associations, they pose the question: what makes something worth saving? "This is a question as old as the trade. What makes certain community archives less important or preservable?" Faride and Oriana ask, with the goal of sparking curiosity and inviting people to approach collections with a more expansive and intersectional approach. They describe how "subjectivity is welcomed but also needed. In the end, there are so many things in society which are exclusive. We can do better. We have so many ways to learn from other trades. We want to go beyond the expected, by approaching exhibitions with different forms of knowledge, and adding to the possibilities for how this informs design." By studying, representing and cataloging materials in non-orthodox ways, they can convey dates, information, and experiences related to objects
as "a proposal, a way to think about and relate differently with materials," says Oriana.
The interweaving of material culture with typography at Letra Muerta allows engagement with creative design and publishing, placing materials in dialogue and positioning them as repositories of history. Faride and Oriana engage with translated works and multilingual content, with special focus on thoughtful, culturally aware presentation of typography and materials. Their design considerations include researching contexts around a font to inform how the type is represented and leverage meanings through the type forms. This mindset considers not only the letterforms but the typographer. For example, they completed a project using fonts designed entirely by Latino typographers, a choice reinforcing project meanings. They are influenced by the original purposes and contexts of fonts; for example, how letters created for use in protest posters, or for communicating social movements, speak to and provide insights into typographical creative histories. Their approach is to be influenced by and in relationship with each project's visual style, with their imprints and exhibitions hinting at the stories underneath the presentation of the physical works.
An example they point to is oil industry funded or influenced design, for example, type and color palette used materials or bindings used in the publications from before or after oil was nationalized, and the involved designers in the country, and also from abroad, who were part of the trade. In Venezuela, Faride indicates, "oil influences the national imaginary," with specific typographic styles affiliated with oil industry publications and graphics. This turn influences and generates design choices and aesthetic characteristics developed within Venezuelan graphics that later were implemented at Letra Muerta. Oriana and Faride described how in Venezuela, packaging inks in some cases switched to monochromes, due to economic disruption impacting availability of printing inks (of oil origin as well). While this economically-charged design decision was related to technical limitations, over time it became aesthetically resonant as a design choice, carrying information about economics, climate, and geopolitics.
Alongside attending to typographic styles, they consider how their work with translated materials is influenced by the structure of the Latin alphabet, in order to present languages together in non-heirarchical formats. In publishing a book about colonialism and colonial practices in museums, they changed the sizes and orientation of the font, allowing the "book to become a dynamic instance with a multiplicity of voices," according to Faride. This text became a case study, an example of thinking with textual layout to honor different voices, styles and content, along with different positions. They point out that graphic design is a "young" practice, and they encourage other designers to look outside of the field to diversify knowledge, "We're not used to thinking about how design can be a point for accessing history." Through the practice enacted at Letra Muerta, informed by experiences outside of design - such as working in shelters, becoming involved in neighborhood communities, and other local actions - Oriana and Faride advance and invite participation with new, cross-collaborative design and archival approaches.
Interview with Oriana Nuzzi and Faride Mereb of Letra Muerta
Written by Jeanne Dodds, ABSF Administrative Director
Image credit: Zuleika Acosta
Letra Muerta asks that, if you are able, please donate in support of local earthquake recovery efforts and earthquake survivors in Venezuela.
International Rescue Committee