Robert Massin

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Expressive Typography: draft double-page spreads on tracing paper for La Cantatrice chauve.

Collages consisting of cut-up Photostat copies and fragments of text, made by hand.

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So from now on typography will play a role that goes beyond that of simple communication.

With the help of images it will strive to fix these privileged moments that seem swollen with a thousand instants. The image, for its part, has already traveled much of the path: it strives to meet up with lettering through the ideogram.

So ultimately we no longer really know whether a characters appearance follows the outlines of the letter, or whether, conversely, lettering itself has become a character.1 - Robert Massin

1 Laetitia Wolff, Massin, (New York, NY: Phaidon Press Limited, 2007), 112.

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Talking about music means talking about the question of variation, which is a fundamental in my work and the basis of everything.1 - Robert Massin

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Experiment in expressive typography, ‘La ci darem la mano’, aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2006, unpublished). The cutout faces of the figures represent musical notes.

1 Wolff, 56.

2 Wolff, 78.

3 Wolff, 92.

by relating his process to music, and how a composer doesn’t just compose each instrument section differently then put it together and hope it works, he goes back and forth to figure out how each individual note sounds as a whole piece. “Every graphic artist, even if he knows nothing at all about music, uses approaches in his layout that are related to musical notation.”2 Massin stated how variation in music was like variation in type design. “Massin reinvented the way a book could be perceived, type is used not only to present the story but to intensify the dialogue. For example, when they spoke loudly he used large type.”3

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“ “ “ “ “ “ If you give me a free hand, I will oversee the typography of all the books published under your brand.1 - Robert Massin

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Draft layouts for Les Maries de la tour Eiffel, pencil on tracing paper, with cut-out Photostat copies of letters pasted on to the layout on Canson paper, 1996.

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1 Wolff, 106.

2 Wolff, 22.

3 Wolff, 68.

Massin used hand-drawn type

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that he created and distorted from original typefaces. “I create things to last-the opposite of a trend.”2 Although born in 1925 Massin’s originality has allowed him to stand out from other graphic artists of his time throughout his years as a designer, and his mind set of not following the trends of his time has allowed further experimentation in his works. He says: “It was precisely because I couldn’t draw that I always relied on existing lettering, distorting the type was my way of drawing. It meant looking sideways, playing with what can seem to be a rigid whole, in other words the alphabet.”1

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The book was no longer rectangular parallelepiped, thick and inert as a brick, but a living thing, into which we were striving to bring a third dimension.1 - Robert Massin

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1 Wolff, 124.

One of Massin’s most famous works; Both images use expressive typography: draft of double-page spreads on tracing paper for La Cantatrice chauve. Collages consisting of cut-up Photostat copies and fragments of text, made by hand.

spreads from La Cantatrice chauve (Paris, Gallimard, 1964): pages 53–54. Here Massin demonstrates his love for experimentation with type on a page, as he re-creates the layouts for a French play La Cantatrice. “His expressive typography channels space, time, sound and rhythm and seeks to lay them out on an empty page- these are the rules that are broken, messed around and reinvented on an empty page”. Furthermore, “He rejects the neutrality of traditional layout to give the reader a subjective vision of the plays Ionesco and Tardieu.”1

1 Wolff, 160.

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I spend hours a day in front of that computer.

I don’t think it produces more talent, which you naturally have. It has to be considered more a means than an end.1 - Robert Massin

The Design as a Whole.

Page from ‘The Headcold’, an extract from The Bald Soprano (New York, Grove Press, 1965) in ironic homage to the typographic rigour of the Swiss school.

1 Wolff, 36.

2 Wolff, 56.

In furthering his innovative book designs, Massin states that “Instead of being designed individually, each book was part of a whole; in short it was a way of reinventing edition binding.”2 It’s always important when designing to remember to look at the whole or entirety of the project, rather then just as separate pieces. When viewing it as a whole you are able to see your designs come together as one, and notice how each piece plays off of the next, like a piece of music.

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Designed by Cassie Amicone 2012 Typeset by Cassie Amicone Printed and bound by MECA printers and Cassie Amicone Composed in Arno Pro and Gill Sans Printed on 32# paper