The old guys stole our best ideas. Three typographic perspectives on historical forms, conference held at Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire Strasbourg, 2024. With Francis Ramel and Laurent Bourcellier. Each of us presented two type revival projects. Francis presented Carolinéale and Baroque Brutal, Laurent Joos and Johannes, myself Nouveau Quellstift and Koch Grotesk. The conference was recorded, video link below.

Instant is an anachronic type family going from thin, quick handwritten letters to stable, black typographic shapes. Each of the five styles correspond to a singular design related to a specific stroke speed and weight: Vivid, Quick, Regular, Slow, Heavy. Hommage to the poet, painter and writer Henri Michaux (1899 – 1984), it questions fundamental differences between handwriting and typography, type family consistency and the relation and usage of roman, bold and cursive faces. Instant was designed by Jérôme Knebusch in 2005 as part of a personal research project at ANRT Nancy. First published in 2012 by BAT Foundry, it is today available at Poem. In 2020, Instant Variable was added to the collection.

Essay devoted to the study of typefaces created during the 15th century which are neither roman nor gothic. The main concern is to offer a description and nomenclature. The research had been undertaken within the framework of the programme at the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (France). Written by Jérôme Knebusch. Published in Azimuts 48-49, St. Etienne, 2018.

One week workshop with Bachelor students. Design of a digital alphabet where capitals and minuscules have a distinctive different drawing.

Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel's remarkable Blumenbuch [Book of Flowers] was published between 1929 and 1942, from precious volumes and portfolios to pocket editions, involving numerous collaborators, printers and publishers such as Mainzer Presse in Mainz, Ernst-Ludwig-Presse in Darmstadt and Insel-Verlag, Leipzig. The Insel paperback edition continued to be printed throughout the 20th century. Koch began drawing wild flowers in 1922. He explains that he 'collected [the flowers] at random and without any particular purpose. I only drew those that grew in Offenbach and the surrounding area...'. A member of Koch's Werkstatt, the young Kredel, engraved most of the 250 drawings. The flowers were engraved on wood and coloured entirely by hand. The entire project - the various editions, sketchbooks, printing tests and original woodcuts - constitutes an exceptional archive that was exhibited for the first time in France, at the Modulab gallery in Metz The exhibition curated by Jérôme Knebusch is a joint venture between the Klingspor Museum, Poem, Modulab and the École nationale d'art et de design de Nancy.

The book brings together researchers from the fields of typography, palaeography and incunabula studies, with a particular focus on type and letterforms. The relatively understudied period – after Gutenberg and before the consolidation of Jenson’s model – extends from the earliest traces of ‘humanistic’ tendencies to ‘pure’ roman type, including many cases of uncertain or experimental design, voluntary hybridisation and proto- or archaic roman. In 1459 in Mainz, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer printed the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum by Guillaume Durand, using a typeface (now known as ‘Durandus’) that looked like no other before. From that point, we can follow a wide variety of developments, partly related to the travels of early printers from the Rhine area to Italy and France. By extension, the private press movement initiated by William Morris and Emery Walker at the end of the nineteenth century in England, revived some of those typefaces before they were once more largely forgotten.

In 2011, students of ESAL Metz started within a workshop with Argentinian type designer Alejandro Lo Celso and their teacher Jérôme Knebusch a specific design for their school. Looking for a bookish typeface tending to modern forms, the students found interesting references in the work of Baskerville and Didot, precisely: exactly inbetween. The type grew during the following years, each time in intensive workshop sessions, to a complete type family named Messine, covering text, display, poster, italic, bold, sans and serif versions. Today, Messine is the official and exclusive typeface of the school, used all over its documents.