Plain Text is a printed publication for exploratory type design, edited and designed by Lucas Descroix and Benjamin Dumond, and published by type foundry Plain Form. The second issue launched in July 2025.
From Plain Form:
From fiction to theory, from mystical analyses to visual works, Plain Text aims at exploring typographic imaginaries, moving beyond a strictly historical and technical framework, with a taste for the unknown and the dormant potential of writing.
This second issue includes contributions by Hervé Aracil, Tim Brookes (Endangered Alphabets), Aliona Ciobanu, Lucas Descroix, Benjamin Dumond, Mardi Forestier, Inscript festival, Elenor Kopka, Marcus Leis Allion, Pierre Pané-Farré (with HAW Hamburg students), Simon Renaud and Alec Vivier-Reynaud.
The texts of this black-and-white, bilingual publication are all set in the unreleased duo Basically Serif for the English and Basically Sans for the French. Additional information is set in Baskemo, also Serif and Sans, an automatically monospaced-and-skelefont’ed companion to Basically.
A number of display typefaces designed by Lucas Descroix and/or Benjamin Dumond are used throughout, for the title of each contribution as well as various emphasis moments. These include: Michaux, Grandmaster, Disc, Jester (in several styles), Ready Active and Clouded and an early version of the upcoming Ferro. Some unreleased display typefaces, either old or future, are also used but not shown here in the pictures.
The fiction work by Mardi Forestier is set in Exposure by Federico Parra Barrios. Imagined together with the author, the layout is an attempt at using an experimental typeface to underline and augment narration, its variations manifesting the idea of breath.
• English and French
• 80 pages, 210×297mm
• offset print on Munken Print White
• 1000 copies, July 2025
• ISBN 978–2–9597254–1–8
This second issue of Plain Text was kindly supported by Commercial Type, CSTM Fonts, Dinamo, Future Fonts, XYZ Type, and 205TF.