With one foot in the fashion industry and another in graphic design, Études Studio is exceptionally adept at channelling its vision into vastly different spheres, argues Diego Etxeberria from Madrid’s Naranjo—Etxeberria.
Temps Mort by Mohamed Bouriuissa is one of our main references. It was one of the first books we bought when we started the studio a year and a half ago. It was edited, designed and published by Études Studio, a collective from Paris that designs and produces men’s contemporary fashion, artists books and much more. They are a good reference for mixing all kind of different creative sectors.
We like Temps Mort for its strangeness. At first we didn't understand it at all but we needed to buy it for its visual power. At Naranjo–Etxeberria studio we work on branding, editorial and digital projects focusing on a very clean and typographic approach and that is why we love this cover, because it’s only text but imbued with a lot of importance.
A cover for us is like a movie trailer, it needs to represent what you are going to find inside in an attractive way. Sometimes the cover is much more interesting than the book. Who hasn’t bought a book for its cover? But, like in the movies, the trailer shouldn't be better than the movie and this book strikes a perfect balance between being attractive and respecting the internal content, which is the real protagonist of a book.
Throughout Temps Mort, you can find all the texts written in the same font size as on the cover, giving more importance to the texts than to the pictures. That is an idea that we like, because often texts are treated as second best and images take the lead. Rules are made for breaking.For us, materials are very important to a publication; Temps Mort is a good example of taking care over them. A book is a book because it’s a physical object, and more than the design or the content, a book is a combination of materials that mark its quality.
naranjoetxeberria.com
etudes-studio.com
Naranjo—Etxeberria
Madrid-based studio Naranjo—Etxeberria edit and design Cookbook Magazine, an annual publication whereby they invite key figures or ‘chefs’ to curated a tome-like publication. Issue one focused around the cultural interests of artist Ricardo Cavolo and for the second issue they handed over the reigns to designer Albert Folch. Recently the studio worked on the editorial design for new art magazine Temps de Vacances and projects for Absolut Vodka, Loewe and Nowness.
Études Studio
…occupies the quite niche ground between menswear and art books. What connects these two disparate threads of its output is a finely honed vision based on strong forms, impactful use of block colour and an overarching simplicity. The pop-up store it created on New York’s Lower East Side last year felt more like a gallery that a retail venture, and founders Aurélien Arbet and Jérémie Egry often take on design commissions for private clients.