Atelier Jérôme Knebusch
Mainzer Landstraße 105
60329 Frankfurt am Main
jk [at] jeromeknebusch.net
+49 69 15 61 60 23

Garden Party, Sébastien Gouju, Saarländische Galerie, Berlin, 2011.

Zaunkönig Appartements, Baden-Baden, 2019.

Custom all-caps typeface in medium weight, used throughout the museum's documents and announcements. The nearby, recently restored Villa Majorelle uses the typeface as well for its signage. The typeface gathers different Art Nouveau forms found in architecture, furniture or art and transposes them into one harmonizing design. It is further is characterized by wide capitals in many variants. The six styles (Crocus, Dahlia, Gingko, Nenuphar, Rose, Thistle) are arranged from the most quiet to the most expressive letter­forms. Designed with Philippe Tytgat. Graphic design by Lab.Leblond.Tytgtat, Nancy. The typeface was later extended to minuscules in diverse weights, and published by Poem as a full retail type family in 2022.

Title
Nouveau
Date
2018–2020
Type
Type design
Client
Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy
Place
Nancy
Material
Custom typeface
Award
Type Directors Club 2023
Publication
Poem

Nouveau, custom typeface, Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy, w/ Philippe Tytgtat, Nancy, 2018-2020. Graphic design Lab.Leblond.Tytgtat.

Of all the title fonts from the Klingspor type foundry, Neuland was probably the most frequently used abroad. But how was it produced? A letter Koch sent to Ernst Kellner in 1922 raises more questions than it answers, and designers have speculated for nearly half a century about whether Koch really cut the hallmarks without any preparation. Dan Reynolds has examined the various sources; Edvinas Žukauskas and Jérôme Knebusch have digitised the different sizes for the first time. The essay Making Neuland and the typeface Koch Grotesk were published by Poem for Neuland’s centenary in 2023. Conference held at ENSAD Nancy, 28 November 2023. It was recorded, link below.

Title
Making/Remaking Neuland
Date
2023
Type
Research
Client
École nationale supérieure d'art et design Nancy
Place
Nancy
Material
Conference
Video
ENSAD Nancy 2023

Making/Remaking Neuland, conference, ENSAD Nancy, w/ Dan Reynolds & Edvinas Žukauskas, 2023.

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.

Title
Messine
Date
2011–2019
Type
Education, Type design
Client
École Supérieure d'Art de Lorraine
Place
Metz
Material
Workshop programme, custom typeface
Interview
Graphisme en France
Conference
Mets, Messins, Messine, Let's Type symposium, Metz 2013
Conference
Baskerville in France symposium, Amiens 2018
Award
Fine Press Book Association 2013
Award
Ampersand Exhibition 2013

Messine, workshop programme, custom typeface, w/ PampaType, ESAL Metz, 2011-2019.

La fin du monde [The end of the world] resembles a thistle or a holly branch. During his residency at the Ergastule studios in Nancy, France, Jérôme Knebusch created twelve in a limited edition. All look similar, but none are identical. They were vector drawn, laser cut in brass, manually folded and oxidized in vinegar steam. Six are exclusively available at Poem, six others at Ergastule. The thistle photograph by Emile Gallé is from the École de Nancy archives.

Title
La fin du monde
Date
2022
Type
Artworks
Client
Ergastule
Place
Nancy
Material
Brass, vinegar oxidized
Edition
Ergastule
Edition
Poem

La fin du monde (2209C47A to L), brass, vinegar oxidized, c. 30 × 5 × 5 cm, 2022. Édition Ergastule, 12 unique + 12 AP

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.

Title
Drôles de types / Strange Types
Date
2018
Type
Research
Client
Azimuts
Place
St. Etienne
Material
Essay
Publisher
Azimuts / ESAD Saint-Etienne
Online republication
ANRT Articles

Drôles de types / Strange Types, Azimuts 48-49, St. Etienne, 2018.

Alte Buchbinderei Appartements, Baden-Baden, 2016.

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.

Title
Gotico-Antiqua, proto-roman, hybrid. 15th-century types between gothic and roman
Date
2021
Type
Editorial design, Research
Client
Poem, Atelier National de Recherche Typographique
Place
Nancy
Material
Book
Editorial direction
Jérôme Knebusch
Translation
Nigel Briggs, Jean-François Caro
Photography
Nabila Halim
Format
16×23,6 cm
Paper
Fedrigoni Sirio, Arena White Rough
Pages
496
Printing
Imprimerie Moderne, Pont-à-Mousson
Binding
Cloth hardcover, sewn, hot foil embossing, 2 colour screenprint on edges, 2 bookmarks
Publisher
Poem, ANRT/ENSAD, les presses du réel
Award
Fedrigoni Top Award 2022
Award
Most Beautiful German Books Shortlist 2021
ISBN
978-2-37896-226-5

Gotico-Antiqua, proto-roman, hybrid. 15th-century types between gothic and roman, Jérôme Knebusch (ed.), Poem & ANRT/ENSAD, Frankfurt am Main & Nancy, 2021.

Yona Friedman. La création, Centre d'art contemporain – La synagogue de Delme, 2009.

klaatu barada nikto: histoires de science-fiction, ESAL Metz, 2013.

Un mot, un matériau, École Française de Saarbruck et Dilling, 2008.

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