A pedagogy of  the written and drawn letter.
History, testimonies, transmission.

By Juliette Flécheux, Manuel Sesma Prieto, Thomas Huot-Marchand, and Jan Middendorp

The history, role, and influence of the Scriptorium de Toulouse, a French type design and calligraphy workshop that existed from 1967 to 2005, are little known.

The 2019 passing of Bernard Arin, director of the workshop from 1982 to 2005, confirmed how urgent it was to document and share this educational and human story, with the workshop’s discontinuous activity, and the fact of it closing twenty years ago, leading to it being forgotten, and its archives scattered.

The activity of the Scriptorium de Toulouse was critical for French type design, in an industry that was marked by major transformations and pushed to the brink of collapse.

The Scriptorium de Toulouse reintroduced and defended the teaching of the written and drawn letter, playing a key role in the revival of type design that was initiated, in extremis, in 1982.

This book, unique thanks to the wealth of mostly unpublished documents and texts that it contains and connects, clearly shows how numerous type designers have benefited both directly and indirectly from this extraordinary, and unique, educational experience.

Contributors include Mathieu Chiva, Matthieu Cortat, Xavier Dupré, Rodolphe Giuglardo, Jérémie Hornus, Franck Jalleau, Richard Lempereur, François Leroy, François-Marie Mallet, Stéphane Mazet, Claude Mediavilla, Laura Meseguer, Floriane Mothes, Christophe Pons-Capitaine, Émilie Rigaud, Stéphane Rouget, Véronique Sabard, Kitty Sabatier, and Agnès Vidal-Saint-André.

Designed by Juliette Flécheux, Bureau 205

Co-published by ANRT and Les Éditions deux-cent-cinq, 2022
In French and English [original documents in French]

Softcover, 240 pages, 2-color offset, 9 × 12.5 inches

ISBN: 978-2-91-938048-0