Shippensburg University senior Christy Digiandomenico saw her art exhibit, “Italia Tipografia,” put on display in the Huber Art Center last week.

Digiandomenico said she enrolled in the university as an exercise science major, but switched her major to art during the second semester of her freshman year because of the influence her art appreciation professor, Ben Culbertson, had on her. She has since submerged herself in the art major and the opportunities that the art department offers students, including the ability to display artwork in galleries.

Digiandomenico took several pictures for her digital art exhibit currently on display in the Brindle Gallery during a trip to Italy last spring. The exhibit focused on typography in Italy and showed off several aspects of Italian culture. 

Typography is the creative art behind the arrangement of letters to make them aesthetically pleasing. The exhibit included street signs, shop signs and even graffiti to highlight the unique typography behind them. The only picture in her exhibit that excluded typography was “Colosseum,” which was a picture of the deteriorating Roman construction of the same name.

The project took Digiandomenico about 15 hours to complete. 

“You can’t just do it all in one day,” Digiandomenico said.

It took her three hours to filter through the hundreds of pictures she took during her trip to find the right ones for the project, 30 minutes to process and edit the photographs using Adobe Photoshop, and only 5-10 minutes to print.

Digiandomenico also added detail to her photographs to catch the eye of viewers.

“If you look at [one of my pieces], there’s a 3-D anaglyph effect,” Digiandomenico said. “I added it to the prints to add a different look to it.” 

The effect pulled the words off the paper and gave them an extreme sense of dimension. 

There are a total of eight pieces in Digiandomenico’s exhibit. These include “Cinema,” “Caffe,” “Bar,” “Always Positano,” “Spagna,” “Colosseum,” “Auto e Moto” and “Sorrento.” 

“Caffe,” which means “coffee” in Italian, shows the sign to a coffee shop. Another piece, “Bar,” shows the white letters indicating a bar. “Spagna,” which means “Spain,” is a more rustic piece that explores a gritty yet aesthetic view of a wall decorated by graffiti and posters. 

Digiandomenico’s “Italia Tipografia” exhibit will remain on display in the Kauffman Gallery through Feb. 15. The exhibit can be viewed during gallery hours from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., Monday through Thursday, or by appointment.

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