engraving from his father, a stone engraver, believed that pastiche “always
extracts the essential character of a period, thus acknowledging the course of
graphic history,” writes Wolff. For Massin, matching the content and
context of a book was more than a problem-solving exercise; it was his
responsibility to readers to afford them a comfortable reading environment.
Arguably, all his bookwork is concerned with the reader’s relationship to
literature, rather than how design must sell a product.
Massin was never taught design—either form or history—yet he
developed a fervent ethic concerning the role of type and image as a vessel
of meaning. Nonetheless, he did not have a fixed ideology (Modernist or
otherwise) or methodology rooted in a single truth. “I had no methods,
because I didn’t attend courses at the specialized schools,” he relates. But
what did govern his work was curiosity, which caused him to practice
design, in part, was the experimental manipulation of form and the
exploration of materials. In his role as book designer and art director, he
continually played with new binding materials, “like linen cloth, gunny,
silk, velvet, wood, etcetera,” he says about what he uses to transform a
conventional cover and pages into a tactile object. During the 1950 s,
designing for book clubs (which routinely published high-quality limited
editions) gave Massin an opportunity to produce livre-objects(book
objects), but even he acknowledges that after some time the tropes became
less interesting to members.
Furthermore, by the late 1950 s, mass distribution of trade books
throughout France had reached prewar efficiency and the book clubs were
not as popular. In 1958 Massin joined Gallimard as the first art director.
Prior to this, the printer created all the cover, jacket, and interior designs.
In return for a freehand, Massin offered to design everything using an
exclusive typographic standard. Over the next twenty years he produced a
distinct visual character through individual books and various series for
Editions Gallimard. During this time, Wolff notes, “The book jacket
replaced the decorative hardcover of the club era, following a model
explored earlier by Italian and American publishers of popular literature.
Again, French publishers were stylishly late.” But Massin was not a slave to
his or any other’s style. Sure, some of his late jackets were similar to the
American bestseller look (devised by Paul Bacon and featuring a big byline
and title with a small illustration), but Massin’s strength was with series,
and his ability to at once have uniformity and surprise within a continuous
imprint. His most visible was the Gallimard Folio series.
In less than six months he redesigned over three hundred covers in
one pop, using the same format with changing elements. (He eventually
designed over one thousand covers in all.) The type was Baskerville Old
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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