Dutch artist and sculptor Constant Nieuwenhuys a.k.a. Constant (1920–2005) is known for the great breadth of his work, which ranges from painting to music. This year he would have celebrated his 101st birthday. The graphic designers at Our Polite Society have used his artistic works as a basis for creating a typeface called Constant Change. It includes six cuts, each containing the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Moving playfully through the alphabet, the typographic designs draw on some 100 works from Constant’s collection. The publication makes use of the tools of typography in a contemporary approach to historical works of visual art, while revealing the sources that inform the designs. Constant Change is accompanied by a text by Paul Gangloff. The publication is supported by Fondation Constant. Our Polite Society is a studio for graphic design, type design and typographic research based in Amsterdam and Stockholm, founded in 2008 by Matthias Kreutzer and Jens Schildt. Paul Gangloff, born 1982 in Altkirch (France), is a graphic designer based in Amsterdam. He works on commissions from artists, authors, friends and institutions, as well as through self-initiated research, workshops, writings, exhibitions and publications.

In Sweden, the Facit brand is as well known as IBM or Olivetti. Based in Atvidaberg, the company produced mechanical calculators, typewriters and office furniture between 1922 and 1998. By the 1970s, the company had grown from a local family business into one of the world’s leading manufacturers. The company-sponsored football team AFF was playing in the first division. But a few years later the Facit organization had disappeared worn down by global capitalism.

The Facit Model: Globalism, Localism, Identity looks at this peculiar example of corporate modernism through the printed matter produced in Facit’s in-house print shops, culled from FACIT’s archives. Type specimens, manuals, advertising leaflets and product catalogs bear witness to a culture which feels increasingly distant, and yet helped to define many of the codes and forms familiar to us from today’s world of work.

Punk: periodical collection, On self-publishing practices, a book by Paul Gangloff, assembles interviews interspersed with a series of collages made during a collective graphic experiment at the Jan van Eyck Academie. In the series of interviews, Christophe Boutin, Didier Christen, Hans-Christian Dany, Stephan Dillemuth, Martijn Haas, Roberto Ohrt, Gee Vaucher and others speak about anarcho-punk, bohemian research, city magazines, design, Do-It-Yourself, fanzines, open houses, imposters, insults, means of production, post-punk, pre-Xerox, self-organization, the Situationist International, strategy and zines. “The first half of fanzine stands for fan as in fanatic. The fan makes a fanzine about his or her idol. The word punkzine came as a substitute at a point when punk rejected fanaticism, which has to do with adoration. Zines are not designed; rather, they are made. Making a zine could be a way to become a designer, but it may also be a way out of the position of designer. On the one hand, it is a question of self-empowerment: rather making a zine than inscribing oneself into existing magazines. On the other hand, it is about overstepping the boundaries of a profession, in order to play several roles as a dilettante. Punkzines are not solely interesting as the visual style of a bygone epoch, as a “source of inspiration” or for direct recuperation. Rather, things may be learned from a study of the spirit in which they were made.”