Solo Show

This little book, following John Smith’s solo exhibition at the Royal College of Art in 2010, was designed by French duo SA*M*AEL (Samuel Bonnet & Maël Fournier-Comte) using the same pair of typefaces that they used for exhibition identity and signage: Francesco, Frank Jalleau’s masterpiece inspired by Griffo’s cuts from Renaissance (and at the time freshly released by BAT) and Gemeli Mono, Jean-Baptiste Levée’s monospace counterpart to his Gemeli type system, several years before its release.

Beside the simple aesthetic of the publication, the typesetting of the book is very subtle and reminiscent of some early trends of the early 2010s: monospace type for body text, underlines, loose letterspacing … all of this probably echoing the Web 1.0 look that was already considered as old-fashionned.