Revue Faire 34: An Award — What Is a Most Beautiful Book? by Thierry Chancogne interrogates the concept of beauty in typography and bookmaking by tracing the contested history of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books award, from Jan Tschichold's formative role in 1943 to the present day.
About This Book
This reissue of issue 34 of Revue Faire — a critical journal dedicated to graphic design thinking — confronts a deceptively simple question: what does it mean for a book to be beautiful? Chancogne traces the philosophical lineage of aesthetic judgement from the Enlightenment through industrial design, using the Most Beautiful Swiss Books award as a lens through which to examine how standards of typographic and editorial beauty are constructed, institutionalised, and contested. At 28 pages, it is a concentrated, provocative read — the kind of text that unsettles assumptions more efficiently than a volume ten times its length. Indispensable for anyone thinking seriously about the cultural politics of design awards and the aesthetics of the printed object.
Key Features
- 28 pages of critical essay on typography, aesthetics, and the politics of design recognition
- Written by Thierry Chancogne
- Examines the Most Beautiful Swiss Books award and Jan Tschichold's influence from 1943 onward
- Published by Editions Empire
What You'll Discover
- How Enlightenment theories of beauty have shaped — and complicated — contemporary judgements about typographic excellence
- The specific historical weight of Jan Tschichold's involvement in defining what a "beautiful" book looks like
- How a national design award becomes a site of ideological contestation about aesthetics, craft, and cultural value
- The tension between industrial design logic and the artisanal traditions of bookmaking as aesthetic frameworks compete in the present day
About the Author
Thierry Chancogne is a contributor to Revue Faire, a critical journal published by Editions Empire that focuses on the theory and practice of graphic design. Further biographical details are not provided in the source material.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 28
- Dimensions: 21 x 30 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9791095991588
- Publisher: Editions Empire
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Graphic designers, typographers, design historians, and anyone engaged with the cultural and philosophical questions underpinning how beauty is defined, awarded, and institutionalised in print.