What happens, then, when contemporary graphic designers appear to take up the torch of an iconography that so-called iconographer-artists had already reclaimed—since the beginning of the last century—from graphic designers themselves, along with their culture and skills? (by Thierry Chancogne).
Scene 1: The painter-iconographer "describes any subject through drawing." Working in a studio or, from direct observation, in the midst of nature, they produce an image based on an object. They were already engaged in what Erwin Panofsky referred to as iconographies.
Scene 2: The painter-iconographer creates an image based on another image or metaphorical text, such as a painting, a photograph, or even an ekphrasis. In other words, the most complete possible textual representation or depiction of an image was one of the primary means of distributing it.
Scene 3: The artist—and no longer exclusively the painter-iconographer—selects an existing, "ready-made" image. In doing so, the artist becomes part of the body of professions linked to the multiplicity of images. The artist becomes a kind of librarian, curator, artistic director, editor: an iconographer aligned with what typographers and graphic designers have long asserted as an inherent means of regenerating the old tradition of illustration.
Scene 4: What happens, then, when contemporary graphic designers appear to take up the torch of an iconography that so-called iconographer-artists had already reclaimed—since the beginning of the last century—from graphic designers themselves, along with their culture and skills?
Faire is a bi-monthly magazine dedicated to graphic design, published from October to June, distributed issue by issue or in the form of anthologies of three or four issues. Created by Empire, Syndicat studio's publishing house, Faire is aimed for undergraduate students as well as researchers and professionals, documenting contemporary and international practices of graphic design, along with the history and grammar of styles. Each issue focuses on a single subject, addressed by a renowned author. Adopting an analytical and critical posture with regard to the forms and activities of graphic design, editors Sacha Léopold and François Havegeer have been running this print magazine since 2018, working with a growing list of authors (Mathias Augustyniak, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Lise Brosseau, Manon Bruet, Thierry Chancogne, Céline Chazalviel, Jérôme Dupeyrat, Aude Fellay, Catherine Guiral, Étienne Hervy, James Langdon, Olivier Lebrun, Victoire Le Bars, Alexandra Midal, Camille Pageard, Remi Parcollet, Sonia de Puineuf, Simon Renaud, Benjamin Thorel, Rica Cerbarano...), resulting in unique and varied topics and writing styles.
