The Work of Graphic and Typographic Design for Photography

The Magazine «Arts et Métiers Graphiques», Paris, 1927-1939

Abstract

The research originates from the point of view of the elective affinities between photography and graphics, but since I deal with photography, the perspective turns upside down, the interest is aimed at the contribution of design towards photography.
In the course of its critical historical development, the idea of ​​photography as autonomous art has been progressively debated, showing how it is always crossed by other disciplines, both for the variety of the objects represented and for the diversity of the circulation media. This observation opens up the search for a multidisciplinary conception that sees photography as a field of exchange between types of knowledge and competence very different from one another.
The magazine Arts et Métiers graphiques (Paris, 1927-1939) shows how typographical and graphic publishing in Paris in the 1930s contributed to the knowledge of photography and its circulation and is an example of the advantages that can be obtained by the confluence of contributions from typography, edition, graphics, advertising and photography, criticism and photographic technique.