“As designers and artists, we produce more than we actually can show,” says Rejane Dal Bello, a Brazilian designer working in London. “And most of the work is controlled or dictated by a ‘why’ and ‘for whom.’ This space takes that out of the equation and lets us show whatever we want.”

For Dal Bello and others, this is where they can break the rules. Says Brandt: “Some of these designers are doing things that you don’t do. You don’t stretch type. You don’t emboss. There’s a lot of really cutting-edge kids, and there’s a genuine conversation happening among them… Some young French designer is probably wanting to talk more to his peers in England, but he’s doing it through this weird node in Minneapolis.” He cites contributors like the UK’s Kia Tasbihgou; UK-born, US-based David Rudnick, Singapore’s Darius Ou, and the French team My Name Is Wendy (Carole Gautier and Eugénie Favre), to name a few.

Most of the contributions—and much of the attention garnered by Ficciones Typografika — come from overseas. The response within US design culture, however, has been “tepid,” says Brandt, who attributes it to a fixation with commerce instead of innovation within American design. As evidence, he points at the AIGA, which recently changed the rules for its national competition, requiring designers to “justify” their work; that is, each entrant must write an explanation of its effectiveness in meeting a client’s goals. Famously decrying the move in 2012, Pentagram’s Paula Scher argued, “When we cut creativity and innovation as a primary goal out of the criteria of AIGA’s last remaining competition in order to prove our ‘value’ to clients, we not only lose our opportunity to learn and our capacity to grow, we also lose our souls.”

Brandt positions his project at the other end of a spectrum. “It’s a community of people who are — it sounds so corny — just dreaming. People experimenting and doing something idiosyncratic, for no other reason than that they want to do it.” He pauses, then adds, “What other art form that was ever good came from wanting to be a commercial superstar?”