n°53 — Photobook: The New Face of Photophilia. Author: Clément Chéroux + book selection with Théophile Calot
April 2025
n°53 — Photobook: The New Face of Photophilia. Author: Clément Chéroux + book selection with Théophile Calot
April 2025
n°03 — A monograph: Recollected Work by Mevis & van Deursen. Author: Étienne Hervy
Sold out
Author: Étienne Hervy.
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
22th November 2017
ISBN: 979-10-95991-04-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Sold out
Author: Étienne Hervy.
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
22th November 2017
ISBN: 979-10-95991-04-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
In 2006, the publisher Artimo entrusted Linda van Deursen and Armand Mevis with the editorial direction and the Graphic Design of their own monograph, Recollected Works. Joined by Paul Elliman in writing the texts, the two Graphic Designers responded with an approach similar to that which they adopt when they accompany other artists and photographers in the creation of books whose relevance has largely contributed to the studio’s reputation. Mevis and van Deursen propose to the reader to experience their work in operation, rather than simply contenting themselves with the reproduction of the work presented as artworks in themselves. Rather than the nostalgia for a more or less formalized organization of their previous projects, the two Graphic Designers look at their previous work as the material for an autonomous project from which this book will emerge.
Such a choice directly raises the question of the constitution and transmission of a culture inherent to Graphic Design, whether it isspecifically aimed at designers or else at a much wider audience. How to transmit the issues and points of quality of a discipline itself dedicated to transmission? One must above all recognize the capacity of this eminently visual field to confront appearances.
Our study of this work will obviously reference a corpus of monographs and publications made by Graphic Designers (Christophe Jacquet, Joost Grootens, M/M (Paris), Karel Martens, Experimental Jetset, Wolgang Weingart, etc.) while at the same time looking more widely at the forms currently adopted for the transmission of Graphic Design (exhibitions, conferences, etc.). Beyond the issues discussed and the questions raised by Recollected Works, it is a matter of both pulling on the thread of the work of Mevis and van Deursen (does a continuity exist between the editorial design of Why Mister, Why? for Geert van Kesteren or the Library Of The Museum Museum of Contemporary African Art for Meschac Gaba, and the identity of the Stedelijk Museum?) and questioning the pertinence of a discourse specific to Graphic Design.
n°27 — Rhizomes of London. Archigram and mental images of the city. Author: Sonia de Puineuf
Author: Sonia de Puineuf
12 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, black and white
+ 1 A1 poster, CMYK
2nd February 2021
ISBN: 979-10-95991-18-2
ISSN: 2558-2062
Author: Sonia de Puineuf
12 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, black and white
+ 1 A1 poster, CMYK
2nd February 2021
ISBN: 979-10-95991-18-2
ISSN: 2558-2062
A mine of images and ideas for architectural and urban-planning practices, the journal Archigram (1961–70) has already been the subject of close reading and analysis by architects, historians, theoreticians, and architecture critics. This study approaches Archigram from a different angle, attempting to interpret it as a successful artifact of graphic design by confronting it with the achievements of its time and other inspirational eras of editorial and environmental graphic design. It aims to explain the graphical evolution of the journal through the graphical stimuli of London—the city where the Archigram architects worked on a daily basis. It is an attempt to demonstrate that the publication, at first glance confusingly heterogeneous, is akin to a comprehensive mapping of the secret whirrs and the more obvious trends of the English metropolis, where the futuristic utopia of the dynamic city took shape in such a particular way. By identifying London’s potential during the mythical Sixties, the Archigram journal stands out as a rhizomatic image, a living mirror of the urban organism.
n°23 — Jan Tschichold: The Master approving of his own work. Author: Žiga Testen
Author: Žiga Testen
24 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
9 September 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Author: Žiga Testen
24 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
9 September 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062
Design history as an independent discipline and field of study appears to be in trouble. Design historians complain about its diminishing influence within universities due to the ongoing instrumentalisation of higher education. The Eurocentric canon built upon values and methods adopted from art and architecture history has been contested by decolonial theories. And finally, it appears that the trust in the institution of ‘history’ itself and its meta-narratives has eroded.
A discipline that was once considered to provide reflection on what came before and guidance on what could come to be—under the auspice of a grand narrative of continuous progress—has been replaced by modest narratives, social anthropologies, and claims of the ‘end of history’.
In this article, I rummage through the ruins of design history and try to unpack what it was that we once considered design history and our design history canon, how we wrote about it and to what end. In particular, I focus on this one image: a portrait photograph of a well-known historical figure, the designer and typographer Jan Tschichold. How is it used? And what stories do we tell about it?