Knoll Wallcoverings Series from the Grammar Collection: Filter, Merge and Switch Patterns

The employment of repetitive figurative characteristics to produce abstractions has led to a new genre and, indeed, a new market for contemporary wallpaper. Abbott Miller’s Merge graphic wallpaper from his Grammar Collection for Knoll Textiles is a perfect example of a design in which abstraction is achieved by multiplying essential elements of the given subject matter. A partner in the Pentagram studio in New York, Miller is known for his early writings on typography with Ellen Lupton. In Merge, overlapping typographic forms produce a density and opacity between the letters that barely reveal their origins. From a distance, depending on the color of the typographic composition (which is always set against a white background), the wallpaper reads as either a monochromatic surface or a lacy tracery.