Faire is a bi-monthly publication dedicated to graphic design. Produced by Empire, the publishing arm of French design studio Syndicat (designers Sacha Léopold and François Havegeer), Faire is aimed at students as well as researchers and professional designers. Each issue addresses a specific object or theme and is written by a renowned author.

This anthology set includes three issues, numbers 10 through 12:

N° 10 — A line: Robert Brownjohn. By Étienne Hervy and Natasha Leluc

The figure of Robert Brownjohn oscillates between New York and London, swaying between the 1950s and the 1960s, juggling, within the profusion of his production, with typographic games and photographic essays, identities on headed notepapers and advertising installations, packaging in the form of a rejected project and the opening credits that went on to become an archetype for every other spy movie.

Constantly stumbling between life and ideas, the trajectory of this student prodigy of Moholy-Nagy who later became the design prodigy of swinging London is a line that never ceases to end. Whether he burned too bright or simply burned too much, this unruly genius forced the gaze of history to turn away, preferring to look elsewhere so as not to frighten the other well behaved children. Little matter the story, once it is signed Love B.J.

This 10th issue of the magazine Faire contains original watercolors by Natacha Leluc.

N° 11 — A printed exhibition: vol.19 by Klaus Scherübel, Title of the Show by Julia Born and THEREHERETHENTHERE by Simon Starling. By Jérôme Dupeyrat

Analysis and observation of how the practice of certain artists and graphic designers is built in tandem and reciprocity with the practice of publishing and exhibition-making, specifically according to two modalities:

— the exhibition imagined as an editorial process, which follows a shift towards the space of the exhibition, with the logic of writing and editing/curating having their origins in the space of the book.

— the exhibition catalog considered as a space and as a mode of amplification for artistic and curatorial work, moving beyond the strict documentary and critical issues usually vested in this type of publication.

N° 12 — A review: Poster of a Girl, Revue Emmanuelle. By Catherine Guiral & Sarah Vadé

In the first half of the 17th century, French doctor Théophraste Renaudot launched a periodical, La Gazette. In it appeared the first “advertisements.” The initial meaning given to this term was that of rendering something public, and Renaudot, a man of multiple pursuits, endeavored then to apply his adage: “For just as ignorance dares desire, since it is impossible to desire what one does not know, even the knowledge of things makes us envious.”

These syllogistic and paradoxical relationships between the stimulation of desire, masked ignorance, and longing lead to the exploration of the tensions that exist between audience, advertising, and eroticism.

Leaning on the appearance of so-called “porno” magazines, and in particular, the magazine Emmanuelle (launched by éditions Opta—Office de Publicité Technique et Artistique—in 1974), Poster of a Girl undresses “heroic masculinity,” to use the expression of philosopher Paul B. Preciado, all while exploring what could be a “magazine of pleasure” (the subtitle of Emmanuelle) in the stark light of contemporary techniques of dressing.*

To open up Emmanuelle is, then, to open up a set of vanishing lines, from a print revolution to a cultural revolution, unveiling forms that are skilled, mercantile, or critical, the very forms in which Eros drapes himself.

Published by Editions Empire
Bilingual, in French and English

60 pages total, each issue separately bound, b&w and color images, 8.25 × 11.75 inches

ISBN: 979-1-09-599109-0