A contemporary reading of the major divergences within the theory of graphic design from the encounter between the two Dutch graphic designers and typographers Wim Crouwel and Jan Van Toorn in the 1970s.
We are told that the hall of the Fodor Museum in Amsterdam, where the scene takes place on this evening of November 9th 1972, was "smoky, noisy and crowded", and that the gathered audience made its presence felt through "frequent shouting". The center of this fevered arena hosted the encounter between two graphic designers, two graphistes, two typographers, Wim Crouwel and Jan Van Toorn, in a country where their voices carry weight, where their thinking is important. A meeting, a conversation, or rather a confrontation, a controversy; it has also been described as a debate, one that characterizes the representations of our discipline in the 1980s and that continues to echo today.
One could see within this sometimes bitter exchange a rather concise illustration of the major divergences within the theory of graphisme, typography and graphic design itself. Mediation of service versus interpretive writing. The planning of the engineer versus the invention of the artist. Organization versus exhilaration. Technique versus criticism. Distance versus implication. Commission versus responsibility. Commerce versus politics. The objective and the subjective. The writer and the author. The artist, the craftsman, the designer, the scientist. The text and the image. The author, the circle of readers. The elite, the public. Beauty, knowledge, the experience of reading.
This essay will attempt a contemporary reading of this long-standing debate that continues to live on. It is accompanied by an original iconography composed of elements taken from the archives of these two late auteurs.
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.
