The project ‘Swing Display’, by student Lea Naisberg, wins Gold at the Young Ones TDC Student Awards 2026

Lea Naisberg, student of the Master in Visual Design at Elisava, has received a Gold award in the Lettering: Digital/Technology – Coding/Scripting category at the 2026 Young Ones TDC Student Awards for her project Swing Display.

Organized by The One Club for Creativity, the awards ceremony took place during Creative Week 2026 at Sony Hall in New York, bringing together winning schools and students from 39 countries.

Swing Display is an interactive type experiment inspired by the movement of chandeliers. The project explores generative typography through a system of animated “crystals” connected in chains that react to user interaction. By clicking and dragging the cursor, the letters sway and distort, creating dynamic compositions in constant motion.

The typeface is built on a modular grid composed of hexagonal “crystals” and stretched elements occupying two vertical spaces. Because the distribution of these forms is randomized, every generated letter appears differently each time. The project includes four variations for each character, experimenting with different levels of legibility and movement, from subtle motion to layered compositions combining all distortion states simultaneously.

Reflecting on the origins of the project, Lea explains: “I was inspired by some chandeliers I saw while walking past what I believe was an antique shop. I saw the glass beads and jewels hanging from them and that brought me to the idea of a swinging movement, which became the main idea for my typeface.”

She adds: “I wanted to create a generative and interactive typeface that would behave the same way a chandelier would. Each letter is made up of jewels that can be distorted by swinging them around with the cursor.”

The project was developed during the Modular Type Design Workshop led by Martin Lorenz as part of the Master in Visual Design 2024/25.

Lea Naisberg currently works at SMLXL, a full-service design studio based in New York and Barcelona and co-founded by Guillem Casasus, who is also a professor in ELISAVA’s Master in Visual Design.