Revue Faire / 34

n°34 — An award: What is a most beautiful book? Author: Thierry Chancogne

 

It was during the century of Enlightenment that aesthetics became autonomous, that the Beautiful separated itself from the Good and the Useful, like a form of free access to meaning, to truth. And one might well ask if, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, design, from dessin to dessein, has not to some extent taken up the torch of the applied techniques of the former regime of the art of doing and making, and of beauty. What has become of the term “beautiful” as applied to typography, understood as the art of shaping books, since 1943 and the establishment of the “Most Beautiful Swiss Books” award under the influence of the famous Jan Tschichold?

 

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The Revue Faire project started in 2017, in light of a realization that critical publications dedicated to the analysis of Graphic Design are sadly few and far between today, particularly in France, but also in Europe as a whole.

Adopting an analytical and critical posture with regard to the forms and activities of Graphic Design, in 2017 Sacha Léopold and François Havegeer established a print publication that deals with these practices. Revue Faire invites various authors (writers, designers, design historians…) to contribute. The list of contributors includes Mathias Augustyniak, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Arianne Bosshard, Lise Brosseau, Manon Bruet, Thierry Chancogne, Céline Chazalviel, Jérôme Dupeyrat, Aude Fellay, Catherine Geel, Catherine Guiral, Étienne Hervy, Olivier Huz, Joris Kritis, James Langdon, Victoire le Bars, Olivier Lebrun, Julie Martin, Alexandra Midal, Camille Pageard, Remi Parcollet, Sonia de Puineuf, Ziga Testen and Benjamin Thorel.

Revue Faire is published by Empire and designed by Syndicat.