Möbius Selves

graphic design, 3D form
Rhode Island School of Design

Möbius Selves is a physical illustration for Italo Calvino’s surrealist novel, Invisible Cities. Form, pattern, color and typography work together in this three-dimensional paper structure.

Eutropia, my chosen city, is in fact a set of cities, out of which only one is active at a given moment—its citizens go about their lives until they tire of their routines, and then move to a new city, where they assume new identities, new careers, new social roles. But they never develop their lives in any significant way, and in the end, this constant change leads only to stagnation.

The idea of change that isn’t change made me think of a Möbius strip, and Calvino’s language inspired the idea of the city as a living organism. I devised the structure of the Möbius shell, each comprised of multiple conjoined Möbius strips, and created two patterns informed by organic forms and nervous systems—one colorful, alive, signifying the occupied city; and the other consisting only of the language of Calvino’s story, signifying the cities that remain empty.