I’m also thinking about giving another dimension top the site, with a menu based on collection (Graphis, Arts & Métiers Graphiques, ABC Verlag, etc.) for an easier user experience. But my main doubt is to share publicatiosn and to give an historical analysis of the content. Probably for another project.

During this time, you can check the Archives Graphiques page on Facebook, where I’m active.

Here’s for example, the complet set of the first issue of Gebrauchsgraphik, published in 1924.

Annouck Boisrobert & Louis Rigaud start working together when they met each other at Les Arts décoratifs in Strasbourg, France. They signed in 2009, just after finishing schools Popville, a first book, a pop-up book, telling the story of a city, from a tiny small house to a gigantic metropolis. They have now, published an handfull of book. A good oportunity to see this exhibition…

• The exhibition start with Oceano, an exclusive preview of the latest book, released at the end of the month.
• In a small window display, we can have a look at Liberté, a leporello book illustrating Paul Eluard’s poem.
• Then, Tip tap, an interactive book, play with the game !
• Dans la foret du paresseux (wake up sloth!)
• And Popville.

The exhibition will be opened till the end of the fair, so, you have one week more. More informations here.

Published by Monrocq Frères, Paris, France
24 pages

Click on the thumbnails to view full size

View more pictures

Some rare, avant-garde and other books from our Baseline archive are now available. Original, important Bauhaus related titles are included.Books edited and designed by Rudolf Koch, Jan Tschichold, Karel Teige, Ladislav Sutnar, Franz Roh, Le Corbusier, Müller-Brockmann, Erik Spiekermann, El Lissitzky, …

I must admit that I never open a single issue of Baseline mag, but as I’m curious I follow the Facebook page here. Yesterday I saw that a Baseline bookstore have been lauch. Prices are very expensive, and we must made a difference between low-cost items (post WWII publications) and pieces of museum.

Baseline vintage bookstore

36 pages
20 x 20 cm
Only 5 copies printed

We already share in the past some book projects created by Urszula Kluz-Knopek, a polish artist. This new book is focusing in her last photography project. The graphic design is by herself too.

The aim of this book was to contemplate the context of a photograph and contrasting it against the book format I’ve chosen. I also tried to show how this form of exhibition can introduce a new quality to photography.  Putting the photographs in a specific order and surrounding them with other photos and their various contexts, enlarging or reducing their scale, covering them up with other photos – creates a story of its own. Each of the measures taken are equally important. Each is a conscious decision. The space in between the photos is very important to me, so is the context that builds upon the breaking of two sheets of paper.

Personal reasons have led me to choose, for this project, photos which belong to very different photographic series, cycles – which function on their own independently. Together with the book, they create a new narrative, a new value. Thanks to the ‘book format’ a new story is created, one which can be experienced personally even on a very intimate level. And all that, while you sink in the colorfulness of a couple of sheets of paper, put together.

Click on the thumbnails to view full size

Last year, Michel Wlassikoff, the great french graphic design historian, send me some pictures of these books about the Art of handlettering for decoration and window display. I don’t rember and can’t find more informations about each book. Both have been published in the end of the 1920′s or the 1930′s. It’s not the joy of looking at a book but only at the content that push me to publish these pictures here.

I’m not very present on this blog since few months and feel very sorry. I’m preparing some post of first issues of great vintage graphic design magazines. These mags are rewied with full details on the issue 2 of The Shelf magazine.

Anyway, I’m quite present since the end of december 2012 on the Facebook group, created by Peter Gabor, called Archive Graphique.

The goal of this group is to share pictures and documents regarding graphic design and typography History. It could be types specimens, magazines, ephemeras, books, exhibitions, maps and cards, posters, windows displays or architecture (if linked to graphic design).

Michel Wlassikoff, french graphic design historian is one of the admins and is sharing most of his documentation. Since december we started with the beginning of roman letters, then Guttenberg and the early type creation. We are now in the middle of the 1930′ somewhere in Europe…

Archive Graphique (Facebook group)

CREE

Créations et Recherches Esthétiques Européennes

Fév./ Mars 1970

N°3

235 x 316 mm.

CREE Éditions

Art Direction: Jean Delaunay

French text with English / Italian / German digest.

CREE

Créations et Recherches Esthétiques Européennes

Déc./ Janv. 1969/70

N°2

235 x 316 mm.

CREE Éditions

Art Director: Jean Delaunay

French text with English / Italian / German digest.

This monthly publication was created in the times of hope that followed the 1968 events all around the world. The years of heavy social change were a fair ground for some designers to grow upon. Designers willing to be part of this change, to build a new global civilisation with their own tools. Just like its political equivalents, CREE reflects the rise and fall of the revolutionary utopias during the ’70s. As the energy crisis came up in 1973, one can see how the magazine became the voice of the resistance, instead of the conqueror it hoped to be a few years before. Designer’s clients became way more conservative and many great projects turned into sweet dreams.

Anyway, one of the goals of this publication was also to mix disciplines, from graphic design to architecture, industrial design to packaging, illustration, and anything a designer could shape, for the benefits of society. This approach is really a mind-opener, and this is what I want to share with you, starting with the second issue (never managed to find the forst one, sorry) published in 1969, up to the forty-sixth in 1977.

And now, let’s begin:

I already publish a post about the first issue of the french (but with english texts) The Shelf Journal some months ago.
Issue 2 is now available on the website and soon in the good bookshops.

As you can see on the table of content, I wrote a long article about 4 first issues of some of the most important graphic design magazines of the XXth century.

1. Arts & Métiers Graphiques, 1927
2. Graphis, 1944
3. Portfolio, 1950
4. Neue Grafik, 1958

I’ll post some pictures of these magazines soon.

The Shelf #2, order a copy

Here’s a preview of some double spread pages.

First English-language edition.
Square quarto.
Black cloth stamped in white.
Printed dust jacket.
180 pp. Japanese-folded pages.

6 x 6 hardcover book that is 1-inch thick, with 180 Japanese-folded pages in which Gerstner exhaustivly illustrates the ways in which words can be presented on a page.
English translation by Dennis Q. Stephenson from the 1972 German edition titled “Kompendium for Alphabeten: Systematik der Schrift.”

This square little book, mostly black-and-white, bound at the top, contains a lifetime of wisdom about the use of letterforms and key issues like spacing, kerning, screens, script forms, arranging words on a page — just about everything that affects the most important issue of all: legibility.

Contents in five chapters

• Language and Writing
• Craft
• Picture
• Function
• Expression
• Bibliography

From the Publisher: “Karl Gerstner is one of Switzerland’s — and therefore the world’s — best and best-known graphic and typographic designers. His high ambition in this book, first published in German in 1972, is to provide a complete and systematic taxonomy of writing, a programmed investigation into the underlying structure of script and type; Gerstner writes that his book is meant to “encompass the aspects and possibilities of the alphabet in their totality.”

It is this systematic and programmatic approach that sets the book apart. Most studies of typography and its larger graphic setting and context are concerned with the history of the development of writing and printing, or are collections of typographic models or typical examples, or are textbooks on layout and design. This one is organized into five sections that take up, in turn, Script and Speech — the relation between writing and language, different alphabets, reading directions (the eye follows directions and moves in a direction), style; Manual Graphics or craft — materials, tools, methods, procedures, reproductive techniques; Images — letter pictures, word pictures, sentence pictures, handwriting, size, proportion, type weight, form, harmony, texture, brightness, color; Function — as effected through dimensioning, spacing, grouping, layout, integration; and Expression — as achieved through coordination, articulation, emphasis, diversion, and the spirit of play.

As a physical object, the book is more than a passive repository of examples of typographic display. It makes a dynamic and integrated typographic statement of its own and as a whole as it progresses and develops in accordance with its internal program. The book is nearly square and opens vertically rather than horizontally. Type is printed on only one side of the sheets, which are folded back on themselves along the outer edge to form double leaves, so that there is no distracting show-through “noise.” There are words printed in blind embossing and stencil cutouts. And color is used with an elegant restraint, appearing only at the book’s mid-section climax — its very sparseness amid the prevailing sharp black and white contributes a luxurious effect.

The great Swiss typographer Karl Gerstner¹s “writing system” remains a classic for designers more than 30 years after its publication. Author of The Designer as Programmer, Gerstner was hugely influential; “nobody matched [his] originality as a typographer nor his daring as an advertising designer, and as a theorist he was for decades the most coherent writer on graphics.”

Appearances can be deceptive, especially where books about graphic design are concerned. The reader¹s perceptions can often be informed by surface and object before substance and content. Karl Gerstner¹s conservatively and minimally designed Compendium For Literates is one such beguiling volume. It is an understated publication, undersize and square. At 6 x 6 inches, the book seems too small to be a compendium of anything, but this unassuming, immaculately crafted black, white and grey gem is indeed a dense little brick of knowledge ­ a treasure-chest for contemporary designers.

The design of the book is essentially traditional Swiss Modernism. Immaculately typeset and laid out on a consistent grid, a single type family (Univers) is used with a minimum of scale and weight changes. The book is bound backwards so that the pages are looped (the pages are turned bottom to top, rather than right to left), allowing the chapter markers to leave a visual index on the outer edge of the book¹s folded pages. To the casual viewer, the formulaic pages of the systematic design might provoke a confusing mixture of excited nostalgia and apathy. However, upon reading, this unadorned graphic facade yields a text that is rich, informative and an essential starting point for aspiring literati to understand the complex relationship and exchanges between writing and typography. [Michael Worthington]

Source : modernism101

Published byWilhelm Nitzschke Publishers,
Schwäbisch Hall, Germany

Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

by Markus Kutter
designed by Karl Gerstner
published by Arthur Niggli verlag, teufen
1957
printer: birkhäuser ag, basel
size: 24 x 16 cm
213 pages
Dustjacket printed in black

Kutter’s story is an experimental novel about a journey from New York to Europe on the liner “Andrea Doria” which actually sank before the book was finished as mentioned in the afterword. the book is primarily known for its experimental design by Karl Gerstner that won a “most beautiful swiss books” award.

More:

• Thinking form
• Felix book
• Wim Crouwel about the book

Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

Chez les Libraires Associés / La boutique du livre animé

3 rue Pierre l’Ermite
75018, Paris, France

+33 (0)1 42 57 20 24

No window, not even a name, just a bell that says BOOKSTORE.

Then the door opens and bang, zoom, let’s go-go, you’re in the temple of the collectible books.

This place is actually the HQ of three welcoming men Jacques Desse, Alban Caussé and Thibaut Brunessaux, whose passion for books brought this place to life a few years ago.

Not only is it a place where you can find the most beautiful rare and out of print books, but they also have a special corner with pop-up books from all places and times.

You’ll also notice a table with books they helped republish (André Hellé superstar) and nice theme-based catalogues for collectors (you know who you are).

This place is also the home for an annual pop-up fest called Salon du Livre Animé, now at its third year, and the basement is a large room where exhibitions regulary take place.

Definitely the bookstore you’ll visit the next time you’ll be in Paris!

Please enjoy these pictures and check the links to their precious blogs at the end of the post.

http://boutiquedulivreanime.blogspot.fr

http://chezleslibrairesassocies.blogspot.fr

http://amisdhelle.blogspot.fr

Top symbols & trademarks of the world

1973
Franco Maria Ricci, Corinna Ferrari
Deco press, Italy
8.25 x 4.25″
English

“A lesson with AG Fronzoni. From teaching design to designing lifestyle.”

Ester Manitto
September 2012

Texts by Enrico D.Bona, Marina Cinieri, Ester Manitto, Gabriele Oropallo.
photo by Artiva, Fabrizio Cicconi, Alessandro Fornili, Giuliano Grossi, Armin Linke, Ester Manitto.

“This book is an act of gratitude from a student towards a teacher.
It is also an invitation that inspire others to give their contribution to the reconstruction of the history
of a remarkable experience, relevant from both a human and professional point of view,”
writes Marina Cinieri in the introduction,”Ester Manitto organises and transcribes
a range of materials including notes and loose texts, and thus she allows us to visit A G Fronzoni’s school-workshop,
founded in Milan in 1982 and open until 2001.”

A G Fronzoni was a graphic and product designer and an architect,
whose work had a great influence on Italian and European designers.

The book consists of two parts. The first one includes a dialogue between the author and the design historian Gabriele Oropallo.
It also features a text by Enrico D. Bona, who writes about his recollections of the time when Fronzoni was responsible
for the layout of the Casabella magazine.
The second part is a map of the key terms around which the ideas of the Tuscan designer were organised; this section
is a result of an accurate selection of the notes taken by Ester Manitto while attending the school-workshop and represent
an important document of the intellectual milieu in which Fronzoni’s work emerged.

publisher plug_in www.plug-lab.it

curator Emanuele Piccardo

graphic design and art direction by Artiva Design www.artiva.it

languages english/italian

translation Andrea Jones

total page Italian text 63

total page english test 63

total page images 24

black and white illustrations

format 22 x 20 cm

isbn code 978-88-95459-10-3 

with the support of Core Manitto Ltd. www.coremanitto.com

Cost € 18.00
Shipping cost in Europe: € 7,00
Shipping cost for other countries: € 10,00
buy the book with a click! buy online by clicking below:

The Deep is a tribute to maritime folklore and tradition developed over centuries of nautical exploration. The ocean, which remains immense and mysterious in our own time, was all the more enchanting and terrifying to sailors in an era when being at sea meant a profound isolation from civilization in oft uncharted waters and dangerous passages.
The Deep is a circular accordion pop-up book which unfolds to an oversized eight-point compass rose. The compass, arguably the sailor’s most valuable instrument, not only enables accurate navigation but brings good luck, ensuring safe passage home and protecting against a watery end in the Deep.
The text and images were inkjet printed on Beckett Expression papers. Pop-ups were cut and assembled by hand, then mounted on board wrapped in Canapetta bookcloth. The work is housed in a wedge-shaped storage box, which also holds a signed and numbered colophon.

* This work is available for purchase.

Kevin Steele

26 issues from 1939 to 1952.

New arrival this morning with a pack of 26 issues of german magazine Gebrauchsgraphik. Each issue is quite in a good state, and I’m happy enough to see the pre-war period in my hands. The content looks great even if the articles are quite poor in analysis. Interesting to see the different vision with Graphis for the same period, and also inspiring when you know that Gebrauchsgraphik stands as a model for the best graphic design magazines like, Arts & Métiers Graphiques (France, 1927), Graphis (Switzerland, 1944), Portfolio (U.S.A., 1950) and probably others.

Der Bau des Himmels
oder
anschauliche Darstellung des Weltsystems in Bildern
Für Schulen und für Freunde der Astronomie.

The construction of the sky
or
descriptive presentation of the world system in pictures
For schools and friends of astronomy.

after
Asa Smith,
Professor and Director of the schools in New York,

German edited by Mayer-Meng,

Second edition,
third impression
Stuttgart

Printed and published by William Nitzschke
Schwäbisch Hall

Last October while visiting SND’s annual conference, i stayed in the newly opened Cleveland Hostel. Up on the wall of my room a beautiful sheet from an vintage book caught my attention, showing the “signs of the zodiac”. Back in germny i found out, that it was from the very famous book “Illustrated Astronomy” by Asa Smith, first published in 1848. I got me an early german translation (1954). Feel free to digg into this beauty on my flickr.

Related Posts:

• Minizine (Marco Ambrosi, 2012)
• M/M for Givenchy
• Minizine #1 (Marco Ambrosi, 2010)
• Exposition Tolmer (Bibliothèque Forney, 1986)
• The Movable Book of Letterform (Kevin Steele, 2012)
• Powered by Contextual Related Posts

Christian Aichner & Bernd Kuchenbeiser
Lars Müller & Papierfabrik Salach GmbH
56 pages
1998
17.7 x 27.5 cm
Printed on  Salapexx 150 g/m², cover on 250 g/m²
Composed on Neuzeit Grotesk S & Helvetica 85 (text) 

The book is composed of Fronzoni’s quotes and archives of his work.
First: Fronzoni never write a single line about his work, his teaching or about him.
The speaking voice is the only thing that can be left in the memory of his family, friends and students.

His work is composed of:
Architecture, mostly interior architecture.
Scenography
Posters
Industrial design: chair & bed

Both traduce a clear determination of creating the essential to communicate in a democratic and respectfull way. If minimalism can be the first word to explain Fronzoni’s way of designing, It can’t be his way of thinking. Close to the Humanism of the italian Renaissance in his european roots, Fronzoni is a also a modernist that doesn’t need to accept industrialization or excess.

For designers & architects who want to discover the work of AG Fronzoni, this books, now out of order, is still one of the best publication.

Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

The book is sold out and no reprints are scheduled. Few copies can be found, like this one or try directly with Bernd Kuchenbeiser.

1923-2002

On March 5, Angiolo Giuseppe Fronzoni is born in San Mommè, Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy.

He has made all his work and his own existence in the name of simplicity and formal geometry as a primary source of inspiration, differentiating and passing the imitation of nature. Intransigent and uncompromising, its strong and original research has involved in all areas of articulating a philosophy of  ”minimalist” based on the synthesis and subtraction that is in the phrase of Mies van der Rohe ”Less is more” is the starting point of his deeply rationalist thought. Fronzoni for the superfluous, the excess, the redundancy is defined as “waste” is understood in terms of aesthetics, moral and ethical.

Began working in Milan in 1949 . He teaches all ‘ Humanitarian of Milan, Institute of Visual Communication of Milan, Institute of Art (ISA) of Monza and in other schools, to create in 1982 its own “Bottega” in Via Magenta that welcomes students from all over the world.

agfronzoni.com

Fronzoni is the story of my love with the work & philosophy of an unknow master of minimalist design. Graphic designer, architect, industrial designer and also teacher, he remains for me the man who, during all his life, try to avoid the un-necessary and to keep the nucleus of what is essential. So, he also avoid writing, prefering the voice to teach, and to leave no traceof his name.

I first met his work in 2001 on the french magzine Etapes Graphiques, now simply called Etapes. I read many time this article and found a deep interest in the way of thinking design, more than thinking aesthetic. During all these years, I search in books, magazines and via google all the informations available. Even the most complete books like this one, seems to list Fronzoni among the best designers, but very few informations were available, and his work was a tiny collection of some posters, few design objects and never a single architecture.

A first site appear on the web but remains “work in progress” and never answer to my e-mail. So I decide to get in touch with one of the author of a small monography published by Lars Muller. Bernd Kuchenbeiser reply and we exchange the Etapes Graphiques magazine with a copy of his book. I discover another side of his work & philosophy. Two years ago, I also found a Facebook page with italian pupils of the maestro. I get in touch with the admin, Ester Manito and we exchange some messages. But his work was the same handfull of picture, pictures of words, pictures of signs.

Few months ago, via the traditionnal google search, I’ve found the agfronzoni.com site, curated by http://maartenpkappert.nl/. I send some e-mails with links and references to the publications, pictures, etc. As my participation was taking a big part, Maarten decide to include me into the project.

We hope that ag fronzoni’s name, work and philosophy will be recognized.

The post is the first of a serie: 3 publications (booklet & books) will be published during the following week.

P Sargant Florence; Lella Secor Florence; K B Smellie
Harrap, London, United Kingdom
1946

America and Britain: Three Volumes in One

Display’s bookstore

Typografische Monatsblätter
Schweizer grafische Mitteilungen
Revue suisse de l’Imprimerie

TM, was and is still a professional magazine focused on printing industry. The covers remains the most striking element of the magazines, the inner contents is mostly review of printing machines & technics, only a 8-12 pages article are focused on graphic design and the creative use of typography.

I’ve already reviewed 5 issues of the year 1968. Here, here, here, here and there.

This project was initiated by Louise Paradis, with the guidance of François Rappo and Roland Früh, as part of her Master degree in Art Direction at the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, Switzerland. The project continued with the financial support from ECAL and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO).

This website is primarily for sharing selective information collected for a research project within the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, on the Typographische Monatsblätter during the years 1960 till 1990. It is a reference tool and searchable database containing material intended for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes such as teaching, research, evaluation and commentary.

www.tm-research-archive.ch

Phantoms
Antonio Ladrillo, 2012
Editions du Livre 

Box (56 x 87 x 8 mm) containing
11 thaumatrope cards (85 x 54 mm each)
Color stamp printing on 300g Munken Lynx
Offset printed box
Limited hand-numbered edition of 60
6 €

A thaumatrope is a card with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to combine into a single image due to persistence of vision.