press kit - mad paris

Exhibitionat Les Arts Décoratifsfrom November 21st, 2013 to March 30th, 2014

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Press contactsMarie-Laure MoreauIsabelle Mendoza

Press kit

Press release

The Typorama book

Excerpt from Signs of Life, by Alice Morgaine

Excerpt from A pour Apeloig, by Ellen Lupton

L’Atelier

Apeloig Type Library, Nouvelle Noire

Around the exhibition:Lecture and workshops

Sponsors

Contacts

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Contents

2November 21st, 2013 – March 30th, 2014www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

Press kitTyporamaPhilippe Apeloig

Education

Born in Paris in 1962, Philippe Apeloig studied at the École Supérieure des Arts Appliqués “Duperré” then at the École Supérieure Nationale des Arts Décoratifs (Ensad). At Duperré, he enrolled in the “visual expression” section, attracted by the creative dimension evoked by its title but unaware of the contents of its curriculum. It proved to be a crucial choice because he discovered calligraphy and the painstaking drawing skills it involves. In 1983 he won an internship with Total Design in Amsterdam, founded in 1963 by Wim Crouwel, which made a profound impact on the visual environment in the Netherlands. In the early 80s, Total Design was already using a revolutionary design tool: the computer. For Philippe Apeloig, this avant-garde approach to graphic design opened up entirely new perspectives in the contemporary and experimental uses of typography, and also the use of the grid as layout structure (pioneered by the Swiss graphic designers). During a second internship at Total Design in 1985, he further immersed himself in the discipline of collective work in a studio, and in the Stedelijik Museum discovered Mondrian and Malevich. These decisive experiences further enriched his cultural universe, then largely focussed on theatre and contemporary dance, particularly the work of Alwin Nikolaïs, Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, from which stemmed the idea to treat the letter as a choreographed body.

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Les Arts Décoratifs is showing the first major retrospective of the graphic designer Philippe Apeloig, spanning a 30-year international career that he has also recounted in a book, Typorama, published specially for the exhibition.

Philippe Apeloig has found inspiration in the modernist movements seeking a fusion of art and design (Constructivism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl) and in his passion for painting, the performing arts and literature. He works chiefly for major cultural institutions (Musée d’Orsay, Louvre, Théâtre du Châtelet), publishing houses (éditions de La Martinière, Robert Laffont, Phaidon Press), art galleries (Galerie Gagosian, Galerie Achim Moeller) and major brands (Puiforcat and Hermès). For this exhibition Philippe Apeloig has selected more than 150 posters, logos, typographies, books and visual identities and is also showing numerous preparatory studies.

November 21st, 2013 – March 30th, 2014www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

Press releasePress kitTyporamaPhilippe Apeloig

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Musée d’Orsay, Chicago poster

At 23, Philippe Apeloig was appointed graphic designer for the Musée d’Orsay, where he implemented the visual identity designed by Bruno Monguzzi and Jean Widmer, whom he particularly admired. The museum opened to the public in December 1986, and a few months later showed its first exhibition, “Chicago, naissance d’une métropole 1872-1922”, focussing on American architecture and urban planning. Apeloig based his poster design on a period photograph of a perspective view of a Chicago street. Using the new technologies he had discovered at Total Design, notably computer assisted design, he placed the letters of the word Chicago in the image so that they have an effect like a gust of wind, wedding the form of the buildings and emphasizing the perspective. The text embedded in the image creates a sensation of vertigo and a powerful three-dimensional effect whose frozen movement conveys the idea that time has stood still. It was one of Philippe Apeloig’s first posters and also one of his most emblematic.

Los Angeles, Rome, New York

In 1988, he spent a year in Los Angeles completing his training with April Greiman, one of the leading Californian New Wave designers, and also a pioneer in the creative use of the Macintosh. On his return to France, Philippe Apeloig created his own design studio and, at Richard Peduzzi’s invitation, joined the teaching team at Ensad, where he taught typography from 1992 to 1999. In 1993, during a year’s residency at the Villa Medici in Rome, he designed typefaces that were immediately used for posters of the October festival in Normandy, and for which the Type Directors Club (TDC) in Tokyo awarded him their Gold Prize in 1995. On his return from Rome, he became a consultant, then artistic director of the Louvre until 2008. From 1998 to 2003, he moved his studio to New York, where he became a teacher with tenure at the Cooper Union School of Art, one of the most selective art schools in the United States, whose free courses encourage talent from all social backgrounds. He was also curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography from 2000 to 2003, organising several exhibitions, including “Jean Widmer. A Devotion to Modernism”, and a series of lectures on graphic design..

Poster for the exhibition Chicago, naissance d’une métropole, 1877-1922 at Musée d’Orsay, Paris,1987 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Posters for the festival Octobre en Normandie Octobre fait danser la saison, Rouen, 1995 Octobre ouvre la saison en musique, Rouen, 1995 Design: Philippe Apeloig

www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr November 21st, 2013 – March 30th, 2014


Press release

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Petit Palais, Yves Saint Laurent poster

Philippe Apeloig designed numerous posters for events and exhibitions, including the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Petit Palais in 2010. This poster is a collage of the famous YSL logo created by Cassandre in 1961, the yellow red and blue of the Mondrian dress the couturier designed in 1965 and, in the background, a detail of a photograph of Yves Saint Laurent taken by Pierre Boulat in 1962. The poster creates associations of ideas by drawing on the biographical content in Yves Saint Laurent’s work. As in most of Philippe Apeloig’s graphic compositions, space is constructed with typographic and symbolic elements that have the effect of opening up a dreamlike world.

Aix-en-Provence, posters for La Fête du Livre

Since 1997, Philippe Apeloig has worked for the Fête du Livre in Aix-en-Provence. His yearly designs have been inspired by the literary universes of the guest authors, including Philip Roth in 1999 and Kenzaburo- O- é in 2006, and of course contemporary themes. For example, for the 2012 Fête du Livre, Philippe Apeloig designed a light blue poster traversed by an archipelago of black letters forming the words of the season’s title, “Bruits du monde”. Some of them have a heavily inked fingerprint that could symbolise the act of mutilating or stopping a haemorrhage. Abstract but also sentimental, the composition evokes frontiers subject to invasion and all kinds of bombardments: ideological, political, journa-listic, military and psychological.

The logos

The Typorama exhibition also features videos showing the process of designing a logo. A series of animations will show the successive stages of this exercise in precision and conceptualisation. Since 2006, Philippe Apeloig has been working with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, for whom he designed the logo, visual identity, posters and programmes. His numerous logo designs include Musées de France (2005), the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (2001), the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire (2012), the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme (1997), the Brazil Year in France in 2005, the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (2004), the silversmiths Puiforcat (2012) and the Louvre Abou Dhabi (2013) whose signage he designed in collaboration with Ateliers Jean Nouvel.

Poster Yves Saint Laurent for the retrospective held at Petit Palais Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, 2008 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster for the Fête du Livre in Aix-en-Provence Bruits du monde, 2012 Design: Philippe Apeloig



Press release

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Rouen, Bateaux sur l’eau poster

Presented in sequences of fifteen plates, the sketches reveal the scope of his research and his use of a variety of traditional and digital techniques (drawings, collages, photos and laser prints). They give us the keys to understanding his creative process via his preparatory studies.

For example numerous sketches illustrate the design process of the “Bateaux sur l’eau rivières et canaux” poster created for the Voies Naviguables de France (VNF) exhibition of model boats shown at the Rouen Armada festival in 2003. The finished poster is a typographic landscape, a delicate interplay of partially submerged words, their reflections and the blue surface.

Grand Palais, Le Saut Hermès poster

The Carré d’Art de Nîmes, the Palais de la Découverte and the Musée Rodin commissioned designs. In 2013, Hermès asked Philippe Apeloig to design the visual identity of Le Saut Hermès, a show jumping competition at the Grand Palais. The poster’s expressive typography creates an image of a jumping horse with white letters on the Hermès orange background. The lines of the text intermingle with thin black lines forming a drawing of a jumping horse and rider. This free, spontaneous design beautifully captures the spirit of this sporting event. We are often confronted with hybrid letters and new typefaces, and invited to rethink our way of reading and deciphering images. The Typorama exhibition reveals the powerful emotional charge in Philippe Apeloig’s work, which transcends design’s functional aspect to become a fusion of art and typography.

Poster for Le Saut Hermès au Grand Palais Design, Jumping International CSI 5, Paris, 2013Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster Bateaux sur l’eau, rivières et canaux, for the Voies Navigables de France (VNF), Armada, Rouen, 2003 Design: Philippe Apeloig



Press release

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Typorama, Philippe Apeloig, graphic design

More than a mere monograph, this book is an invitation to explore the inner world of Philippe Apeloig’s creative process.

The idea germinated when Philippe Apeloig and Tino Grass, a young German graphic designer, met during a series of lectures on typography in Düsseldorf in 2006. When he discovered Philippe Apeloig’s archives, Tino Grass wanted to illustrate his creative process by showing the successive stages of a project, from the initial sketches to the final design.

The book begins with two essays by Alice Morgaine and Ellen Lupton, fully illustrated with images, clips from films and other sources revealing Philippe Apeloig’s imaginative universe.

The book is then divided into two sections.

– The first section has five thematic chapters: Museums, Theatre, music and dance, Publications, Posters and typography, Logos and visual identities. An exhaustive overview of Philippe Apeloig’s finished works, each with detailed commentaries and fully illustrated, ranging from the posters for the Musée d’Orsay when it first opened in 1986-87 to logo of the Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2013.

– The second section focuses on Philippe Apeloig’s preparatory studies, presented chronologically from the most recent to the earliest. His computer drawings, photocopies, photos, collages and sketches all provide a fuller understanding of how he develops his projects, and also highlight the evolution of design techniques since the 80s, when digital technology revolutionised the work of the graphic designers of his generation.

The Typorama book gave rise to the exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs from November 21st, 2013 to March 30th, 2014.

The Typorama book

Edited by Tino Grass, a Cologne-based graphic designer. He has been teaching typography in several universities for art and design. He is the author of a book on typography, Schriftgestalten, über Schrift und Gestaltung (Niggli, 2008).

Essays by:

Ellen Lupton, curator of the contemporary collec-tions at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, and author of several publications, including Thinking With Type. A CriticalGuide for Designers (2004), Skin. Surface, Substance, Design (2007) and Graphic Design. The New Basics (2008).

Alice Morgaine, adviser to the artistic director of Hermès. She began her career as a journalist at L’Express (1962-1978) and at Jardin des modes (1979-1997), then curated the exhibition programme at the Verrière-Hermès in Brussels (1999-2012).

The commentaries were written by Ann Holcomb, based on descriptions and project histories provided by Philippe Apeloig. The French version of these texts was edited by Michel Wlassikoff.

Format: 29.5 × 24 cm, 893 images Sewn bindingDesign: Tino Grass with the participation of Anna Brugger for Studio ApeloigCover: Philippe Apeloig Prix (incl. VAT): 55 € French version: Éditions Les Arts Décoratifs English version: Thames & Hudson

November 21st, 2013 – March 30th, 2014



The book Typorama

Interior pages from the Typorama book, 2013


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Châtelet Théâtre musical de ParisFounded in 1862, the Théâtre du Châtelet gained fame during the first half of the twentieth century for operettas featuring the most famous artists of the day. After undergoing a major renovation, the Châtelet reopened in 1980 under the name Châtelet, Théâtre musical de Paris. Today, it presents musicals, opera, and dance, as well as classical, jazz, and pop concerts. The organization’s logo, designed by Apeloig in 2006, draws attention to music, which lies at the heart of both the theater program and its language. It uses the font Akkurat, created by Laurenz Brunner in 2004. The design cuts “Châtelet” into three syllables, stressing the sonority and rhythm of the word. Apeloig plays with the theater’s evolving identity by stacking the fragments “châ,” “te,” and “let” in large, bold lowercase type and by sandwiching “Théâtre musical de Paris” in small uppercase letters between them. Lines around the central second syllable “te” suggest a note dissected from a score.

The first printed program was designed to emulate a Pantone color fan, giving the public a tactile and visual understanding of the season’s offerings. The use of bright colors – hot pink and neon yellow – shocks the eye. The narrow pages flip freely, creating a sense of rhythm, repetition, and surprise.

Program Saison 2006 – 07 Châtelet, Théâtre musical de Paris 21 × 5.5 cm (8¼ × 2� in.)Printer: Stipa/PLJ Édition Communication Typeface: Akkurat 2006 Program Saison 2008 – 09 Châtelet, Théâtre musical de Paris 14.5 × 9.5 cm (5¾ × 3¾ in.)Printer: Stipa/PLJ Édition Communication Typeface: Akkurat 2008 Program Saison 2011 – 12 Châtelet, Théâtre musical de Paris 14.5 × 9.5 cm (5¾ × 3¾ in.)Printer: Stipa/PLJ Édition Communication Typeface: Akkurat 2011

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Direction des musées de FranceThe Direction des musées de France (National Museum Board of France, an arm of the Ministry of Culture and Communication) has administrative responsibility for thirty-four national museums and over 1,150 regional, local and associatively run museums. In need of a standardized, uniform system to identify every institution under its purview, the government agency launched a competition for a universal ideogram, which Apeloig won. The goal was to create a logo that would allow the public to instantly identify the museums on a map, in publications, and in situ as part of this network.

The design concept was developed around a lower-case m, set in Frutiger Condensed Black. The small m is friendlier and less intimidating than a capital M and so suited to making public sites of high culture seem more accessible. The m is placed inside an open rectangle delineated by dotted and dashed lines. The compositional arrangement resembles a gallery floor plan with diverse access points. Surrounded by open space, the m becomes the object on display – as if it were a drawing, painting, or sculpture. The logo embodies both functionality and modernity, and all manner of museum collections.

LogotypeDirection des musées de France, ParisTypeface: Frutiger Condensed Black2004 See pages 316 – 17

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The prints of Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hiroshige and Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem “Il Pleut” (1918), handwritten in lines of rainfall, would further alter Apeloig’s perception of how movement can be conveyed visually. He began to choreograph letters and entire words in a way similar to how the German Bauhaus painter, sculptor, and director Oskar Schlemmer had reconfigured the human form in geometric terms. “When one creates a poster, a logo, or a typeface,” says Apeloig, “one is constantly referring back to the Bauhaus in one way or another.” When working at the Musée d’Orsay some years later, Apeloig came across the photographs of Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge, which deconstruct the process of walking and running via a series of freeze frames. Movement and the passing of time, the links between the past and the future, have remained an integral part of Apeloig’s work.

Total Design

The library at the School of Applied Arts had only three books on contemporary graphic design – two didactic works and a copy of Milton Glaser’s Graphic Design (1973) with a psychedelic portrait of Bob Dylan on its cover – so Apeloig began to build his own collection. His first purchase was English designer F. H. K. Henrion’s Top Graphic Design (1983), which introduced him to Roman Cie lewicz, Odermatt & Tissi, and, most importantly, Wolfgang Weingart. Apeloig dreamed of studying under Weingart, who, he later said, “turned Swiss graphic design on its head. As the pioneer of all that would subsequently be achieved through the use of compu-ters, he is the spiritual father of contemporary graphic design.”

Roger Druet was aware of his student’s reading materials and interest in graphic design and suggested that Apeloig apply for an internship with the Dutch design studio Total Design during his second year. Apeloig applied and landed a three-month placement at this important design studio on the banks of Amsterdam’s Herengracht canal. The summer of 1983 he worked as part of Daphne Duijvelshoff-van Peski’s team, sur rounded by fellow students from Switzerland, Germany, and America, all of whom were better trained. He soon familia- r ized himself with the work of Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Gerrit Rietveld, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Zwart, and the Dutch De Stijl art movement, and he began to work on various poster projects and annual reports, while also learning about the fundamentals of page layout, including the grid.

Abstract graphic designer Wim Crouwel and five peers had foun ded Total Design in 1963. Crouwel was fascinated by the possibilities offered by computers and in 1967 designed the audacious typeface New Alphabet, an early attempt at a digital type. It consisted only of straight segments, similar to architectural elements. The computerized geometry of the letters served as a springboard for creativity. The following year, Crouwel desi gned a totally novel black-and-white typo graphic poster for the exhibition “Vormgevers” (Designers) at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and left the construc-tion grid visible (page 208). In his brochure New Alphabet, published in 1967, Crouwel explained the origins and guiding principles of his almost elemental graphic approach. The brochure remains an essential read for anyone designing characters today – an introduction to the possibility of creating freely with letters. During his internship, Apeloig was lucky enough to try out Aesthedes, the latest and most sophisticated computer system available during the early 1980s. He was quick to recognize that computers would transform graphic design, both in practice and in outcome, as every aspect of typography would become easy to manipulate at will.

Total Design took a primarily functionalist approach to design but also nurtured the spirit and theories of the De Stijl movement, which could be applied to both industrial design and to typo graphy. Crouwel himself was greatly influenced by contem porary art and he designed numerous exhibition posters for the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven between 1950 and 1960, and for the Stedelijk Museum between 1963 and 1985. His posters avoided the simple reproduction of a work of art, instead opting for an assertively modernist and analy tically abstract typographical approach that still clearly reflected a modern aesthetic. Apeloig learned from this approach and from the questions forever being posed in the Total Design studio: “How can we turn something seemingly functional into something creative?” “How can we adjust typography to its correct scale, and intuitively manage to position and order everything perfectly, while retaining a specific emotional tension?” In 2010, aware of Apeloig’s admiration for Crouwel and at the instigation of Unit Editions, the Design Museum in London invited Apeloig to create a limited-edition poster for its exhibition on the Dutch designer (page 209). The poster followed Crouwel’s grid and orthodoxy to the letter. Total Design’s conciseness, rigor, functionality, and highly original sophisti cation had a lasting influence on the idealistic, enthusiastic Apeloig, who remembers how he felt, even then, like “I was in the right place at the right time.”

Wolfgang Weingart (born in 1941)Schreibkunst, 1981 PosterKunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich

Milton Glaser (born in 1929)Bob Dylan, 1973Poster Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

F. H. K. Henrion (1914 – 1990)Top Graphic Design, 1983Book ABC Verlag, Zurich

Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964)Zig-Zag Chair, 1934Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

Philippe ApeloigTotal Design Intern Report, 1983Montage of film stickers and transfer lettersAmsterdam

Wim Crouwel (born in 1928)New Alphabet, 1967BrochureDe Jong & Co. Lithographers, HilversumStichting Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Wim CrouwelFernand Léger, 1957PosterVan Abbemuseum, Eindhoven Stichting Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

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Interior pages from the Typorama book, 2013


The book Typorama

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Saut HermèsInaugurated in April 2010 by the luxury label Hermès (originally a saddler), the Saut Hermès (Hermès Jump), held at the Grand Palais in Paris, is an elite competition of world-class show jumping. Hermès commissioned Apeloig to design the poster for the 2013 event. Expressive typography dominates with each letter seemingly caught mid-jump. The characters exercise within a spatial void filled only with the signature color of Hermès: a pure orange. Form and meaning merge as the title text, set in white type and broken up into six lines, careens across the surface, neither centered nor aligned left or right. The letter forms vary in weight from bold to extra light, a subtle modulation that intensifies the energy of the composition. The capital As are the most strenuous – real hurdlers – with legs set at oblique angles. The lines of text are interwoven with a spare drawing depicting a rider on a jumping horse. The duo is modeled out of short black lines and enters the picture plane from the left, moving forcefully to the right. The angling of the clean, tapered black strokes creates a sense of forward momentum and speed. The drawing is interwoven with the letters so that the two elements overlap and penetrate one another — an edgy equilibrium remains between them. The design overall is spontaneous and free, as befits this sporting event.

InvitationSaut Hermèsau Grand Palais, Paris23 × 17 cm (9 × 6¾ in.)Open: 23 × 51 cm (9 × 20� in.)Typefaces: original creation, Avenir2013

Poster Saut Hermèsau Grand Palais, Paris175 × 118.5 cm (68� × 46� in.)Screen printPrinter: Lézard GraphiqueTypefaces: original creation, Avenir2013See pages 284 – 85

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Poster Saut Hermèsau Grand Palais, Paris2013 See page 210

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Yves Saint LaurentA retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent’s fashion designs at the Petit Palais, organized and curated by the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent and Paris-Musées, was entitled “Yves Saint Laurent, 40 ans de création” (40 Years of Creation). In Apeloig’s design solution, the title was shortened to the name alone and broken down into two parts. Early on in the design process, Apeloig realized that Cassandre’s famous YSL logotype would provide the main graphic element. His challenge was to overlap visual layers without creating a cluttered look, in keeping with Saint Laurent’s reductive style. Apeloig wanted to express the soul of the designer, not promote the brand. In a meeting room at the Fondation, Apeloig spotted a gouache-and-ink drawing of the 1961 logo in photographs of Saint Laurent’s studio. This original Cassandre drawing hung on a wall behind his worktable. Handmade, with discernible, delicate brush marks, it was easily differentiated from the stamped com mercial logo. Apeloig brought it to life by reversing the color shading, which also gave the brushstrokes the illusion of three dimen-sions. The palette’s pro portions and yellow, red, and blue color scheme derive from a 1965 Yves Saint Laurent “Mondrian” dress. The new rendering of the intertwined YSL integrates Cassandre’s design with Saint Laurent’s haute couture.

A detail of a 1960s photograph of Saint Laurent by Pierre Boulat was used for the poster’s background. It was reproduced using a large dot screen, evoking not only newsprint but also silkscreen – specifically, Andy Warhol’s emblematic 1972 portrait of his friend. Over the image, in large white bold capitals, lays the word “YVES.” The use of his first name made the designer accessible. “Saint Laurent,” in smaller red type, sits across the bridge of Saint Laurent’s nose, drawing the viewer’s eyes to his gaze.

Informational text, placed vertically along the left edge of the poster, follows the proportional coloring established in the logo. The font is Avenir, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, which Apeloig selected for its geometric aspect and subtle variations in weight. It provides superb readability, matching the clarity of Saint Laurent’s style. Uppercase letters are used for the title, poster, and book layout.

Poster Yves Saint Laurent Petit Palais, Paris 175 × 118.5 cm (68� × 46� in.)Screen print Printer: Sérica Typeface: Avenir 2010

Pierre Boulat (1924 – 1998)Yves Saint Laurent, 1961Photograph

Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008)Haute couture CollectionFall/Winter 1965Hommage to Piet MondrianEcru wool jersey

Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, known as A. M. Cassandre (1901 – 1968) Yves Saint Laurent logotype, 1961Gouache on paper


Sources

He acknowledges his sources openly, referencing them with enthusiasm and admiration. For him, creativity is born from engaging with the creative output of others, enriched by history, the spirit of the times, and the subtle differences of the past. The result is either blindingly simple or spectacularlymodern depending on the case. Apeloig confides that “Matisse’s painting The Dance combines everything I love about art: movement, rhythm, areas of solid color, simplified forms, and the notion of scenic space.” He is also deeply moved by Joan Miró’s work, with its naïve, poetic, childish vision of the world – an aesthetic often found in contemporary graphics. The works of Eileen Gray and Carl Andre, as well as some of the drawings of Sol LeWitt, with their repetitive systems and geometry, have also influenced Apeloig’s typefaces. Interestingly, none of this thinking and studying of art and literature, always undertaken in an unhurried, leisurely manner, is immediately visible in Apeloig’s works, which appear to have been perfectly thought through and structured, then assembled like high-precision machines. First, there’s the impact, then a feeling of surprise, a smile… Only later, upon scrutiny and closer analysis, does the work start to reveal his utopian dreams for a just and peaceful world.

There’s something quixotic about Apeloig’s drawings, words, and motivations, as well as something that has come from afar – wounds never received, wars never known, organized massacres from which he was spared, a totalitarianism never suffered. A personal and universal sense of responsibility for every being on earth pervades his work. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said in his book Flight to Arras: “Each of us individually is responsible for everyone”. This sentiment also appears in the works of the Russian Constructivist artist El Lissitzky, who illustrated Ilya Ehrenburg’s short story “Shifs karta” (Boat ticket) by sticking Hebrew characters onto a handprint. “Lissitzky’s use of an outstretched hand in guise of a refusal”, says one of the artist’s biographers, “matches Malevich’s statement, ‘That the rejection of the old world of arts be marked on the palm of your hands’ (from Unovis leaflet No. 1)”. Apeloig looked to this hand and to Chagall’s Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers when designing the logo for the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (Jewish Art and History Museum) in Paris. The museum chose not to go with this symbol, however, preferring Apeloig’s 1997 black-and-white stylized design of a lit menorah, which is evocative of a seal, an ancient coin, or a hallmark.


Excerpt from Signs of Life, by Alice Morgaine from the book Typorama, published by Thames & Hudson

Poster Brésils Brésils, Année du Brésil en France, for the Association française d'action artistique, 2005Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster Matisse & Rodin, for the Musée Rodin, Paris 2009 Design: Philippe Apeloig




Poster Saison 1996-97, for the musée du Louvre, Paris, 1996Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster L'Asie des écritures croisées un vrai roman, for the Fête du Livre in Aix-en-Provence, 2009Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster Kenzaburo- O-é, je suis de nouveau un homme for the Fête du Livre in Aix-en-Provence, 2006 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Apeloig has, from the outset of his career, worked predominantly on cultural projects, particularly institutional ones. Pierre Rosenberg, curator- in-chief of the paintings department at the Louvre, chaired the scholarship selection jury that sent Apeloig to the Villa Medici in 1993. Later, as director of the Louvre, he entrusted Apeloig with the upkeep of the museum’s visual identity, which was originally designed by Grapus in 1989. Apeloig’s first poster, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Society of Friends of the Louvre in 1996, featured close-ups of twenty artworks from the museum’s seven departments, a sort of photographic who’s who. Over the next nine years, Apeloig’s collaboration with the Louvre grew even closer, with the new director, Henri Loyrette, appointing him artistic director with his own in-house team. […]

A Conscientious Approach

Since 1997, Apeloig has been creating graphics for the posters and programs of the Fête du livre, an annual book festival dedicated to foreign literature in Aix-en-Provence. Faced with the daunting but enjoyable challenge of producing graphics to accompany the words of major writers from around the world, Apeloig has immersed himself in the writing of authors such as Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, and Kenzaburo- O- é, experimenting with ways of transcribing their literary universe through graphic design. The portraits and themes he has devised for the festival over the years – for example, “Lire la Caraïbe” (Reading the Caribbean), “L’Asie des écritures croisées” (An Asia of Intersecting Writing: A Real Novel), and, more recently,“Bruits du monde” (Noises of the World) – have become iconic to us today and were the result of intense intellectual research. Similar consideration led to Apeloig’s 2004 brand work for the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (University Institute of Architecture, Venice), in which the school’s initials, IUAV, were symmetrically placed one on top of another like the floors of a building. The resulting logo, which is legible recto or verso, is deceptively simple, as if it had always existed, and constitutes an important benchmark in the work of Apeloig’s studio. He devised a similarly harmonious and coherent logo two years later for the Direction des musées de France, the organization in charge of administering France’s public museums.




The layout of any art book tells a story, with a beginning, a climax, and an ending. Its cover acts like a trailer for a film: it has to make you want to discover its contents straightaway. “When I design a book,” says Apeloig, “I transform myself into a fashion designer, clothing the book in keeping with its format, letting myself be won over by the complete range of materials and finishing techniques available.” Guided by his love of the written word, he tries to explore unusual publishing genres and sometimes designs limited editions. The book’s contents have to be dramatized, its design sparking off a sense of familiarity in readers that will make them want to read it. A graphic designer must anticipate the reader’s gestures and glances, using the rhythm of the page layout and visual accents to lead the gaze in what could be described as controlled improvisation. Of course, graphic design can be seen as an art form, but, as Apeloig points out, “Talent is used to help put across a message or piece of information for a client. The graphic designer’s vocation is similar to that of an actor whose task it is to create a character and to recite an author’s text in the clearest and most personal way possible. His interpretation reveals his genius. If the text is incomprehensible and the role barely credible, one might say he had performed badly and that the piece was a failure. Similarly, the graphic designer must respect his client’s requirements. His task is to interpret them visually. If he changes direction or monopolizes the argument, rendering it indecipherable, he has failed. He has to take account of the way the public perceives his images. A graphic designer’s skill consists of finding a visual concept that makes [his] presence felt in an obvious yet original way, and that is, of course, easy to remember.”

It is unusual for a graphic designer to have prior knowledge of a subject when he first meets with a client. Everything has to be learned, “and I adore that,” says Apeloig. Restraint, simplicity, and complexity are the key words here, but the thought process is long and winding. Apeloig therefore often uses old film-editing techniques: “I cut ideas into pieces, putting them back together in a different order. I play around with them, constructing my indecision until the composition looks strong enough to work its way into the public’s visual memory. My job is to perturb.” […]


Book Recto Verso, for Take 5, 2012 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Exhibition catalog James Turell, for the Gagosian Gallery, London, 2011Design: Philippe Apeloig

Magazine Mixt(e), 2011 Design: Philippe Apeloig





[...] Few structures are more ingrained in a designer’s vocabulary than the grid, the network of coordinates that organizes nearly every page of content, whether actively or indifferently. The Swiss rationalist designers endowed the grid with a utopian edge in the 1950s and 1960s and it later became the restrictive vernacular of desktop publishing, whose graphical interfaces offer instant gutters, guidelines, and columns. Apeloig’s grids are more dynamic, complex, and overt; they often sit on top of the page rather than in the background and drive forward the construction process rather than supporting it.

Apeloig discovered the potential of the grid during his internships at Total Design, where he worked directly with Daphne Duijvelshoff-van Peski and Jolijn van de Wouw, who in turn assisted the studio’s founder, Wim Crouwel. Designers at the firm produced their sketches by hand on tracing paper, always with a sheet of Rotring graph paper underneath. All solutions were pursued typographically, in contrast with French designers’ reliance on illustration and lettering. The preferred typeface was Univers, and nearly always sans serif. For Apeloig, “This strict approach was a symbol of modernity.”

Inspired by Crouwel, Apeloig embraced the grid as both a generative tool and system of organization. While Crouwel’s grids are largely rational in their outcome, however, Apeloig’s structural nets seek out a greater diversity of forms and relation-ships, openly embracing that which is awkward, mis-matched, or disjunctive. The grid serves not only to control and regulate but also to splinter, deform, and dissolve. At its finest grain, the grid becomes a filter or screen that decomposes shapes and surfaces into bits. The collision of strange shapes in the poster for the 2010 exhibition “Radical Jewish Culture: Scène musicale New York” (The New York Music Scene) finds an arrhythmic oddity and persistent order in the mechanical heartbeat of the grid; modular letters float over hand-scrawled notes by composer John Zorn. To give the lettering a sense of depth, Apeloig produced a laser-cut stencil of the custom-drawn characters. Spraying the stencil with powdered charcoal, he created drawings that were later digitally retouched and overlapped to produce shadows inside the letterforms, enhancing a sense of three dimensions. Life seeps in through the cracks in the grid.

Poster Radical Jewish Culture Scène musicale New York, for the musée d'Art et d'Histoire du judaïsme, Paris 2010 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Poster Le Havre, Patrimoine mondial de l’humanité, 2006 Design: Philippe Apeloig

Excerpt from A is for Apeloig, by Ellen Lupton from the book Typorama, published by Thames & Hudson




Poster and sketches of Wole Soyinka, for the Fête du Livre in Aix-en-Provence, 2007Design: Philippe Apeloig

In Apeloig’s poster for the 2007 exhibition “Wole Soyinka: La maison et le monde” (Wole Soyinka: The House and the World), the usually transparent, ethereal grid becomes physical and opaque. To celebrate the work of this esteemed Nigerian author, Apeloig applied the traditionalweaving techniques of West Africa’s Yoruba people to the writer’s portrait, slicing two copies of the image into narrow strips of contrast-ingcolor and tone and then methodically weaving them together by hand. The material pixelation resulting from this process added layers of depth and disturbance to the author’s unwavering gaze. Apeloig created numerousvariations of the underlying image and its typographic overlay before arriving at the final poster. His sketches show how he experimented with different levels of abstraction and ways of incorporating typography on the surface of the image, shuttling between physical and digital manipulations.


Excerpt from A is for Apeloig, by Ellen Lupton



Press release Bilans et perspectives ’89, les arts plastiques, 1989Design: Philippe Apeloig

Apeloig’s fascination with deformed and overlapping grids reflects the influence of the Swiss designer Wolfgang Weingart, who subverted the tradition of Swiss rationalist typography beginning in the late 1960s. Weingart would seed the global movement of Postmodern typography by using the modernist vocabulary of type, line, shape, and grid in complex and contradictory ways. His students include April Greiman – the California-based designer with whom Apeloig interned in 1987 and 1988. From Greiman, Apeloig learned to embrace software as a source of unexpected errors and strange new forms of beauty. With its layered grids and eccentric curves, Apeloig’s 1990 calendar for “Bussière arts graphiques” (Bussière’s Graphic Arts) recalls the work of Wolfgang Weingart. His design of the 1989 book Bilan et perspectives ’89: les arts plastiques (Balance and Perspective ’89: Visual Arts) incorporates Greiman’s more spontaneous, digitally liberated sensibility, and her full-on rebellion against the laws of the grid.

Book Comme un coursier indompté, for the Imprimerie nationale, Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris 1989 Design: Philippe Apeloig


Excerpt from A is for Apeloig, by Ellen Lupton



Philippe Apeloig created his studio in Paris in 1989 after his return from Los Angeles. After an initial residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, he moved to the 11th arrondissement, where he worked with a team of rarely more than three interns and assistants at a time.

From 1998 to 2002, he worked freelance in New York, teaching at the Cooper Union School of Arts.

Back in Paris in the early 2000s, Philippe Apeloig led a team of young graphic designers. L’Atelier, now in the 9th arrondissement, is composed by a team of 5 to 6 people.

Since 2009, two fulltime collaborators have helped him with the conception and realisation of the Typorama book and exhibition:

Anna Brugger, graphic designer, born in 1985 in Switzerland and a graduate of the School of Applied arts in Basel.

Yannick James, graphic designer, born in 1983, and a graduate of the École régionale des Beaux-Arts in Valence.

They were recently joined by Léo Grunstein, graphic designer, born in 1988, a graduate of ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels.

L’Atelier



A b c de f g h

i j k l m no p q R s tu v w xy z

01 2 3 45 6 7 8 9


Apeloig Type Library

Ten extraordinary typefaces designed by the French designer Philippe Apeloig will be published as "Apeloig Type Library" by the Swiss typefoundry Nouvelle Noire.

The Apeloig Type Library is a compilation of ten typefaces created by Philippe Apeloig between 1993 and 2013. This outstanding library makes visible Apeloig's distinctive approach to letters and type. Apeloig conceives type design as a research and play between legibility and form. A rich typographic expression and an impressive variety of shapes have emerged from his creations, which defy legibility yet remain accessible to the viewer.

Originating from his posters, book covers or corporate and visual identities, each font began as a few letters designed especially for a given project. Nouvelle Noire has undertaken the development of typefaces from Apeloig's core letterforms. Over a two-year period, Nouvelle Noire developed the designs into ten full working fonts.

All library fonts support a wide range of western European languages. Opentype features are embedded in each font, depending on the characteristics of the typeface. On the occasion of the Philippe Apeloig retrospective "TYPORAMA" at the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, the Apeloig Type Library will be exhibited as a part of the exhibition, open from 21 November 2013 to 30 March 2014.

The Apeloig Type Library will be published in November 2013 by Nouvelle Noire.

www.nouvellenoire.chApeloig Type Library

Apeloig Type Library, Nouvelle Noire




Lecture

Thursday, December 12th at 6.30 pmPhilippe Apeloig, a typographic performance

At the 111, rue de Rivoli, 75001 ParisMétro Palais-Royal – Musée du Louvre or Pyramides Reservations by e-mail: [email protected] (limited number of spots) Entrance fee: 5 € / Amis des musées 4 € / Students 2 €

Children’s workshops

Workshop: Au pied de la lettre (5 / 7 years)Cutting out and playing with collage and drawing, children imagine and create a small album in which letters take shape and become words.

The Typography Studio (8 /10 years)Discovering the work of the graphic designer Philippe Apeloig encourages children to draw, compose and play with letters and words to convey their own messages. Participation fee: 10 €Duration: 2 hoursMaximum 15 participants.Reservation obligatory: +33(0) 1 44 55 59 25 or by email to [email protected]

Guided tours for adults and adolescents, 15-25 yearsA discovery of the new exhibitions. Children from 8 years are welcome – contact us the day before to reserve a visitor’s book for them. No prior enrolment required: tickets at the ticket office.

The dates of all these activities are on the Arts Décoratifs website:www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

Around the exhibition




Fondation d'entreprise Hermès

Since its creation in 2008, the Fondation d'Entreprise Hermès has been accompanying all those who are learning, mastering, passing on and inventing the creativity that can construct today’s world and invent that of tomorrow. Guided by the development of new knowledge, techniques and skills, the foundation focuses on two complementary axes: “knowledge and creation” and “passing on knowledge.”

On five continents, the foundation supports organisations and project leaders working in these two fields, also creating its own programmes. Since 2008, the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès had regarded design as a major creative discipline, and organises an international competition, the Emile Hermès Prize to reveal young professionals. On a given theme, the foundation invites them to invent tomorrow’s objects, taking two notions into account: respect for the environment regarding production and distribution, and the manufacturing and industrial skills and techniques necessary to realise the project.

The foundation also regularly supports initiatives in the design field, including the Design Parade at Villa Noailles and the Agora Scholarship. As a member of the Arts Décoratifs Partners’ Club since 2008, the Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès is now delighted to support Philippe Apeloig’s Typorama exhibition, considering that graphic design is a vital creative field in our time.

Sponsors




Voies navigables de France (VNF)

Philippe Apeloig’s creative relationship with Voies Navigables de France began in 2003 with the Bateaux sur l’eau poster, for which he received his first international award. Ever since, VNF has remained closely involved with the artist and his work.

When VNF underwent a major transformation, regrouping the 4,700 employees of France’s waterways within a new Etablissement Public Administratif on January the 1st 2013, we naturally asked Philippe Apeloig to respond to our call for tender for VNF’s new visual identity and graphic charter.

Philippe Apeloig is familiar with France’s river and canal system and its challenges, and his artistic vision enabled VNF to renew its image with a touch of modernity. The waterway, unifying symbol of all the actors of France’s waterways, is composed of horizontal lines linked to these fluvial landscapes. A combination of reflections, waterlines, river and canal banks and quaysides at different distances, it visually structures VNF’s identity. And some have even seen it as a reference to the containers piled high along France’s rivers!

Sponsors




Le French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF)

The French Institute Alliance Française is a non-profit-making non- governmental organisation founded in the early 20th century. Located in midtown Manhattan, FIAF has become one of the most respected Franco-American cultural centres in the United States.

The FIAF’s mission is to promote the French language and intercultural dialogue through partnerships, artists’ residencies and a major cultural programme. The language centre provides high-quality teaching for over 6,000 students and is the largest French language teaching centre in the United States. FIAF was lucky enough to meet Philippe Apeloig in 2005. Philippe’s collaboration with Richard Peduzzi resulted in an original “staging” of our building, on whose eight floors Philippe created an allegorical image of France on coloured mural panels. The positioning of the FIAF brand was also redefined and modernised. For eight years, Philippe Apeloig has worked with our team to design and implement all our communication with immense generosity and talent. Philippe succeeded in giving FIAF a veritable visual identity on our website, documents and brochures, projecting a modern, joyous and original image, with the French touch so appreciated by Americans. We are infinitely grateful to him for this, and this is why we are proud to play our part in the success of this retrospective of his work.

Sponsors




Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent

The Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent is pleased to announce its participation, alongside the Museum of Decorative Arts and Philippe Apeloig, in the publication of the catalogue, "TYPORAMA APELOIG". The Fondation thus revisits its successful collaboration with the young and talented graphic designer who created the catalogue,"Yves Saint Laurent", which accompanied the 2010 retrospective at the Petit Palais in Paris (March 11– August 29, 2010).

The Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent honors forty years of creativity. It conserves the fashion designs created by Yves Saint Laurent which have shaped the social dynamics of contemporary society.

A state-recognized foundation since 2002, the Fondation conserves and celebrates the work of Yves Saint Laurent. As part of its eclectic and dynamic program, the Fondation hosts two exhibitions each year. It also supports many cultural and pedagogical activities.

Sponsors




The exhibition was supported by:

Achim Moeller – Moeller Fine Art, New York-Berlin,Connery Pissarro Seydoux,The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York,The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès,The Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent,Voies Navigables de France (VNF).

The exhibition was made possible with the support of:

Fedrigoni,

Nord Sud Matériaux,

the printers Stipa,

the Théâtre du Châtelet,

and the Théâtre national de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées.

The publication received support from:

Voies navigables de France (VNF),The Barki Agency and Lessebo Bruk.

Sponsors



Curators

Amélie Gastaut, Curator of the Advertising Department

Yannick James, for the Studio Philippe Apeloig

Website

www.lesartsdecoratifs.frwww.facebook.com/lesartsdecoratifswww.twitter.com/artsdecoratifs

The Arts Décoratifs

Bruno Roger,President

Marie-Liesse Baudrez,General director

Olivier Gabet,Museums director

Pascale de Sèze,Communication director

Musée des Arts décoratifs107, rue de Rivoli 75001 ParisPhone: +33 01 44 55 57 50

Métro: Palais-Royal, Pyramides, Tuileries

Open Tuesday to Sunday 11 am to 6 pm(Late opening Thursday until 9 pm: Temporary exhibitions and jewellerygallery only) Full rate: 9,50 € Reduced rate: 8 €

Musée Nissim de Camondo63, rue de Monceau 75008 ParisPhone: +33 01 53 89 06 40

10 am to 5.30 pmClosed Monday and TuesdayFull rate: 7,50 € Reduced rate: 5,50 €

Ateliers du Carrousel107, rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris

266, Boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris

63, rue de Monceau 75008 ParisPhone: +33 01 44 55 59 02

Educational and cultural servicesTours for adults,groups and individualsPhone: +33 01 44 55 59 26

Workshop-tours and guided tours related to an exhibition for 4 to 8 year-oldsPhone: +33 01 44 55 59 25

Lectures and panel discussions Phone: +33 01 44 55 59 75

Partners’ clubbrings together firmswishing to participate in promoting Les Arts Décoratifs, developing a lasting relationship with our institution and broadening their network of contacts.

Members – at three different levels – benefit from the advantages of patrons and sponsors.Phone: +33 01 44 55 58 07

The Arts Décoratifs Library107, rue de Rivoli 75001 ParisPhone: +33 01 44 55 59 36

Open Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 6pm

École Camondo266, Boulevard Raspail 75014 ParisPhone: +33 01 43 35 44 28

Les Amis des Arts Décoratifspromote the Arts Décoratifs museums and library in France and abroad. Their supportcontributes to the enrich-ment and restoration of the museum’s collections.Members have free admission to the ArtsDécoratifs museums and can participate in private visits, thematic days andcultural tours. Phone: +33 01 44 55 59 78

Boutique 107Rivoli107, rue de Rivoli 75001 ParisPhone: +33 01 42 60 64 94

Open 10 am to 7 pmClosed Monday

Le Saut du LoupRestaurant, bar, terrace107, rue de Rivoli 75001 Parisor access via the Carrousel GardensPhone: +33 01 56 88 50 60

24www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr November 21st, 2013 – March 30th, 2014


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