On his quest to find and recover a meteorite at the final frontier, the Pacific Ocean, captain Levant instead discovers the island of Auctus Animalis, inhabited by a whole new class of augmented animals with extraordinary features… What sounds like the beginning of a fantasy novel is indeed one. Photographer and artist Vincent Fournier is largely inspired by the literature that made him dream of the future and alternative realities when he was still a child.

For Auctus Animalis he teamed up with pianist and composer Sébastien Gaxie and together they conceived a project combining photography and music that won them the fifth Prix Swiss Life à 4 mains in 2022/23. Auctus Animalis consists of two parts, an audio-visual installation of large photographic prints and the book featured in this post. It comes with an inserted CD and shows the pictures in the manner of a contemporary (or futuristic) bestiary. To create these animals, Fournier first took photographs at the Natural History Museum of Paris and then altered them artistically using 3D modeling software.

The 64-pages book was designed by Élie Colistro using the typeface Kessler by Alaric Garnier. Black on black and in all-caps typesetting, it provides the cover with an air of mystery and elegance. Inside the book we see it in a two-column layout aligned to the left. The fourteen short chapters start with a small illustration followed by roman capitals and a line in italics, a formula of clear typographic hierarchy that you can also see on the title page of the bestiary.

Indeed one must note the extraordinary typographic sensitivity in this project. Not only are the caps carefully spaced at all times, the designer also worked with the different optical sizes Kessler offers. A Roman with a pronounced stroke contrast, Kessler Text stays sturdy enough to ensure comfort at reading sizes, while Kessler Display and Kessler Super Display exaggerate on the delicacy of the strokes for the larger point sizes, for instance on the cover. You can explore on these optical sizes yourself on Production Type’s page for Kessler.