‘What if…’ was the 2010 window display in the Wellcome Trust’s London headquarters. Designed and curated by Dunne & Raby, it showcased a selection of the latest work from students and alumni of the Design Interactions department at the Royal College of Art, as well as work by Dunne & Raby themselves.

Kellenberger–White was commissioned to develop a flexible design and display system, as the content of the window exhibit was set to change four times throughout 2010.

Chroma key green was used as a backdrop to present the large images, monitors, objects and statements – making the window into a green-screen space of the kind familiar from film and TV production. The “What if…” texts were designed by reworking a modernist typeface into a rotated-italic, which was used to bring rhetorical emphasis to the statements. The leading “What if…” questions were produced as 3D, independently standing typographic forms. They were made from hot-wire cut polystyrene, a material selected for its lightness as well as its responsiveness to the green backlighting.