Magma is a contemporary publication that revives the tradition of 20th-century art reviews. It serves as a platform for artistic expression, fostering collaboration between artists and writers.

The journal aims to transcend the conventional boundaries of the art world, inviting readers to engage in a dialogue. It serves as a meeting place for artists, photographers, writers, directors, sculptors, and architects from different generations and backgrounds. Contributors have the freedom to explore various forms and content, creating original and previously unpublished works specifically for the publication.

The inaugural edition of Magma features 18 artists and over 80 works of art and literary texts, in a large format bound like a book for annual publication, including two inserts of artworks. The journal is art directed by Helena Kadji & Rocío Ortiz from Faye and Gina and has Lineto’s LL Ruder Plakat on full display, with LL Catalogue playing a supporting role on the main articles.

Words from The Office of Ordinary Things:

A family-owned and -operated print shop, D&K tasked us with creating a piece that showcases the scope, quality, and ambition of their craft, while also educating their customers about sustainable printing basics. They gave us free rein to design a print promo that exemplifies this in both form and content.

The promo comes alive in the ways it asks readers to participate and engage through sliding, tearing, flipping, ripping, unpacking. Zip strip letters spelling the client’s initials demonstrate the delight that can occur when print is combined with playful design.

We put Söhne through its paces, using it a range of point sizes (the bookmark sheet features teeny tiny 3pt type!) and printing on a variety of substrates. Söhne held up beautifully on press in all scenarios. We utilized the middle to lighter weights of Söhne, including Halbfett, Kräftig, and Buch, with a touch of the Leicht weight of the condensed cut, Söhne Schmal.

Labor (read as laboratory in German) was a project at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf that spanned between 2010 and 2016. The initiative gave a myriad of artists, including Olafur Eliasson and Thomas Struth, a long narrow exhibition space to interpret in their own way. To document the diversity of approaches and outcomes, we produced with the gallery a boxed series of publications that showcase each artist’s contribution. The proportions of the publication matched the narrow proportions of the exhibition space. Each cover was printed on a different pastel paper stock and featured an interpretive typographic composition relaying the artist’s title. We chose Neue Haas Unica for all copy, because of its neutral and somewhat clinical nature, a reference to the Laboratory.

The exhibition Souffler de son souffle (“blowing with your breath”, Nov. 2021 – Apr. 2022) gathered 26 artists from different generations and artistic movements at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles (FVVGA). The exhibition takes a transhistoric route as it covers all the spaces within the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles.

To show the diversity of the non-linear curatorial approach, we worked on a hybrid catalogue with different papers, colors and textures. The publication is divided in five different parts and includes a variety of texts. We have adapted the layout grid to the nature of each text, while separating each category with a blue title page.

We worked with two complementary fonts: TWK Everett, designed by Nolan Paparelli, and WT Kormelink, designed by Jacob Wise. We played with these two fonts, mainly using Kormelink for the first part of the catalogue, and Everett for the appendices. We've also personalized the word ”souffle” (“breath”) throughout the publication: the first f bends over the second f as if a breath makes it change.

We used different textured papers for the cover as well as to separate the different parts of the publication. We played with the architecture of the catalogue itself. The cover has a cut flap to reveal the word “Souffler”, and plays between two papers of different thicknesses and colors. Fedrigoni's Jade paper resembles wind patterns and makes the link with some patterns used by Vincent van Gogh. The binding with blue thread is apparent and shows the various booklets of the catalogue.

The paper for the main part of the publication is coated, specially chosen for photoengraving. Appendices use thinner, glossy paper in an information and magazine register.

The StadtFabrik / City Factory is a “real-time” research lab for new fields in the creative economy that concentrates on discovering and revealing future urban potential in Vienna. This booklet, typeset in Fugue, is a product of the City Factory. It is a tool ­of change, a notebook that is intended to be used, passed on, shared, in order to learn from one another. It is meant to motivate you to come up with and implement your own new ideas for a livable city that is ready for the future. The complete booklet is animated through an augmented reality environment.

See the full project on the LWZ Studio website.

Art direction, bespoke type and editorial design for the brand new book by Maison Vérot. Showcasing 89 recipes, shots by David Japy and lot of technical workshops illustrated by Éliane Cheung, this book was developed for amateur charcuterie lovers who want do it from home. The book measures 205×260mm, features 256 pages, and published by Éditions du Chêne. It represents the first use of the BTC Cast01 typeface.

Via “The 101 Best Book Covers of 2021, As Chosen By Our Favorite Book Cover Designers”, presented by Emily Temple on Literary Hub.

Grace Han’s jacket design for My Year Abroad received five mentions, two of which are reproduced here. David Litman comments:

I’m a sucker for perspective type and dimensional design; this is probably my favorite. Love the shapes, the texture and the off-register colors. This feels big in such a fun, funky way.

Stephen Brayda adds:

So many layers to get lost in, but what stands out is Grace’s type choice: the round characters match the five circular shapes. My eyes jump around in the best way

Chang-rae Lee’s new novel was published by Riverhead in February 2021.

The Book Cover / A Capa do Livro is a manual on industrial covermaking, compiling the most common techniques and what you can do with them. Built for quick consultation and thoroughly illustrated, the book is available in a Portuguese and an English-language edition. Published by design studio itemzero and printer Gráfica Maiadouro.

Uivo is used throughout.

See also The Book Block / O Miolo Do Livro, the previous, first volume of this series about book production.

Everett in use by Studio Moretti Visani. On Instagram, SMV comments:

We have been called to design Beyond, a limited edition book dedicated to photography, art and fashion, curated by Take Care Collective.
Beyond brings to light the creative process of four artists who work mainly on long term projects (...) [who] describe their research process beyond the images, showing diaries, sketches, references, techniques.

In 2020, I worked on a major book for École nationale supérieure d’art et de design de Nancy. The topic is more than current in 2021 since it tackles temporary habitats and emergency systems. It gathers texts from the symposium “Identités du transitoire”, held by ENSAD Nancy back in 2015, but also new ones intended for the publication.

The slightly grainy paper used for the cover has an earthy orange tone that echoes red stone, a central element in permanent habitats, as a way to include this publication in a series of theoretical and practical works that contribute to a permanent evolution of the practice.

Od pałacu do rotundy (“From the palace to the rotunda”) is a publishing series devoted to the buildings which house the National Museum in Wrocław and its three branches: Panorama of Racławice, the Ethnographic Museum, and the Four Domes Pavilion of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The publication not only describes the stories of the individual buildings, but also draws attention to their architectural and artistic values.

The study, rich in original photos and construction plans of the buildings from different periods, has been supplemented with contemporary photos by Nicholas Grospierre and the photographic department of the National Museum in Wrocław.

Designed by Marian Misiak and Olaf Schindler. The four publications use Marian Misiak’s Di grotesk throughout, and in multiple weights.

Los Amantes (“The Lovers”) is the second book by Gio Pellicer. Written in Spanish, it combines narrative and poetic elements. It was sustainably printed and has a cover made of recycled fabrics. The typeface used in all caps for the cover is Hanol by Paris-based designer Bouk Ra. From Type Department:

Hanol – taking its namesake from a Korean word for a strand/thread or hair – is a typeface which emphasises the beauty of curves within the strands of letters.

The book is available from the author’s website.

24.2×32.6 cm hardcover with and without dust jacket

When we think of masks, we think of carnival, African tribal rites or death masks, theatre and fashion, but also role-playing, wrapping and protection. Masks are among the oldest and most controversial objects in human cultural history. Contemporary artists are not only interested in the mask as an object, but also in its social, cultural and political significance and this book traces the mask in contemporary art.

Atelier Pol designed the exhibition catalogue in close collaboration with the Aargauer Kunsthaus. With rich visual material and short texts on the exhibited works, the volume shows the artists' respective approaches to the broad thematic field of the mask. Two introductory essays additionally shed light on the topicality of the mask and its prehistory in art.

Headlines use Founders Grotesk, all other text is set in Inter and Messina Serif.

Transparent dust jacket

Artists index

Essay by Madeleine Schuppli

The catalogue(s) were published on the occasion of the exhibition Show Yourself at the Design Museum Den Bosch. The museum was gifted two extensive collections – the jewellery collection of the museum’s previous director Yvònne Joris and the ceramic collection of designer and interior architect Benno Premsela.

The brief was to design separate publications for each collection which also can be combined in one volume. In bookstores the books of Premsela, respectively Joris are offered individually. A special jubilee edition, where the two publications are fitted into each other and kept together with a dust jacket, is available at the museum. Both are shown in this post.

The duality of the two publications is elaborated in black and white paper, smooth as opposed to rough cover board, and a straight-cut fore-edge for the Premsela cahier contrasting with an untrimmed and therefore pointed fore-edge for the Joris book. Large silver page numbers are placed prominently in the middle of the page to divide the English and Dutch texts.

Franchise magazine, issue 05

Franchise magazine is “a premium print publication dedicated to global basketball culture. Founded by a collective of players, artists and writers, Franchise documents the stories, characters and ideas that shape the game we love.”

The nameplate is set in Realtime Rounded Bold, which is also used in the magazine's interior.

Back cover for Franchise magazine, issue 05

Spread, issue 05. Typography is set in a version of Franklin Gothic.

Spread, issue 05.

Spread, issue 05.

Interior spread of Franchise issue 02. The typography uses Realtime Rounded for headlines, paired with Franklin Gothic.

Franchise x Paul Pfeiffer Issue 05 Cover T-shirt

Magazine logo T-shirt

Franchise magazine, issue 01 to 04