Ici l’Onde

Ici l’Onde (“Here’s the wave”) is the title of the quarterly musical season organized by Why Note, a cultural center for musical creation in Dijon, France. Each trimester, a theme is chosen for the program, which includes concerts, lectures, and performances. During the past year, Covid-19 has cancelled most events, leaving concert halls and other cultural centers closed and unable to welcome their visitors. In order to fill this absence, Why Note edited a booklet presenting the works of five artists and performers working with sound, in a text by Juliette Volcler. This publication was given away for free at the concluding event of this short season, titled Sonic Bloom.

The booklet was designed by Atelier Tout va bien, also located in Dijon. Even though the publication is modest in size, the papers and the printing make up for that, adding a certain preciousness to the object: the recycled paper is from Fedrigoni, and there are some touches of copper here and there. The cover is also interesting as it is folded into a jacket, partly hiding a rasterized image. The different ways of composing “Ici l’onde” (on the jacket and on the title page) express the mobility of the season, where each trimester offers a new theme and new places for the concerts and shows. The publication is densely packed with texts, set in Big Daily from Production Type and Beatrice from Sharp Type. Big Daily was inspired by newspapers typefaces, especially the small characters between 6pt and 12pt: this gives it a wide x-height that occupies the space of the narrow pages of the publication, while making it very legible. Overall, with great simplicity, the publication manages to create a dynamic between the different layouts, without making it anecdotic, and keeping in mind that the final goal of it is, before all, to present the artists and to make up for the missed concerts of last year.