“Les murs ont la parole”. Journal mural mai 68 by Julien Besançon
Front cover
From The Idea of the Book:
A book of transcribed quotes in French from the graffitied streets captured during May 1968 events in Paris. Each quote throughout the book is typeset in a different serif or sans serif font, creating a reading experience that feels like a type specimen combined with revolt.
“Les murs ont la parole” was compiled by journalist Julien Besançon (1932–2017) and published in landscape format by Claude Tchou (1923–2010), Paris, in June 1968. In 2018, MIT Press published an English edition under the title The Walls Have the Floor, translated by Henry Vale.
Gérard Lo Monaco (b. 1948) was in charge of the design. The front and back covers are set in Folio, which was known as Caravelle in France. While the title is shown in the Bold weight, stacked and staggered and with added thin and straight quote marks, the smaller text uses the Medium Extended. Many of the typefaces used on the interior pages correspond to Massimo Vignelli’s Canon. See Lo Monaco’s portfolio website for additional pages.
Back cover
The title is set in caps from a Caslon and a Garamond. ITC Founder’s Caslon 42 by Justin Howes is a digital version that comes close to the former.
“Cette fois aussi, c’était au temps des cerises” in Helvetica
“JE JOUIS dans les pavés” in a large Caslon, cf. Matthew Carter’s digital Big Caslon
“Déculottez vos phrases pour être à la hauteur des sans culottes” in Chicago, see Angelus-Mediäval
3 Comments on ““Les murs ont la parole”. Journal mural mai 68 by Julien Besançon”
Éditions Tchou used the same basic design for more books, including “Ni dieu ni maitre” – Les anarchistes, La liberté ou la mort 1789, and Les damnés de la terre 1871, all published in 1969. On the covers of those, Folio Bold is paired with Univers:
I’ve been so obsessed by this collection of books for many years — very happy to see those book covers here!
Pauline, do you happen to have a copy? If you want to make images of the interior pages, we could replace the current ones, which are okay, but not great.
I’m fond of the way Folio Bold was made more compact by trimming some of its details, see e.g. the numeral 1 and the letter r on the cover of Les damnés de la terre 1871. Together with the hairline accents and quote marks, this really brings the typography to life. Very 1960s, very DIY.