Bobine magazine

Launched in 2021, Bobine is an independent media enterprise that celebrates French terroirs and their know-how through a print magazine, a podcast, immersive articles, and a newsletter. Behind Bobine, there is Justine, committed photographer, founder of Studio Payol, and trained artistic director, who likes to celebrate the beauty and poetry of the moment through images. And also François, editor and producer of podcasts, who travels across France with his bike and his microphone to meet the reels of the French regions.

They describe their magazine as follows: “We love timeless stories. Those that stick in your mind years later. When they have grain, relief and a beautiful audio and visual signature. Sharing stories, highlighting know-how or even telling the invisible, Studio Bobine takes the side of Beauty.” Three issues were published so far, no. 1, “Héritage”; no. 2, “Résistance”; and no. 3, “Périphérie”.

This magazine is using many different typefaces, to illustrate the variety and creativity of the content. The all-lowercase logo features Paul Eslage’s Sombra Poster. To typeset the body text, they choose Mercury, a robust serif typeface, designed especially for newspaper articles and available at Hoefler&Co.

For the titles, subtitles, quotes, names and captions Bobine is using Tarnac Sans, a typeface drawn by Marc Rouault and distributed by Sharp Type. The Tarnac family is directly inspired by the hand-painted Michelin road signs made in the sixties. Marc designed the Égyptienne (slab-serif) version first and the Sans version in a second time. Tarnac Sans keeps the same wonky proportions and flat-interior bowl shapes as Tarnac – which are a French aesthetic signature. This use, in a French magazine promoting heritage, is a perfect match for Tarnac!

Other typefaces used for Bobine but not shown in the images include Laima, Prachar, Scarlet Script, and Temeraire Italienne,