Bach. Theme and variations
It is always risky to translate musical structures into graphic design, but after listening to Bach’s music, we were inspired to transfer certain elements of his work, such as his rhythms and instrumental polyphony, into the typesetting treatment and the interactions between the type and images. For example, we chose to treat the text as a continuum; the paragraphs are only distinguished from one another by small breaks with a “tonal” accent (a visible space). We wanted to convey a modern reading of Bach. To do so, we wove photos around the texts. The photos in question were ones depicting more or less coincidental, organically ordered structures. Small reproductions of well-known artists’ interpretations of Bach’s music were pasted onto the pages, echoing the tipped-in color plates used in illustrated books from the early 20th century. For the typography, we decided to use the robust, humanistic Renard, contrasting it against the sober New Univers by Linotype.