NOUVELLE VAGUE: A TYPOGRAPHIC TRANSLATION
Project Overview
French New Wave is a 32-page publication that reinterprets the French New Wave, a 1960s cinematic movement defined by experimentation and rebellion. The project translates the era’s rhythm, politics, and emotion into typography and composition, exploring how pacing, hierarchy, color, and materiality can echo the language of film.
Each section embodies a director’s distinct visual voice: Jean-Luc Godard’s radical friction, Agnès Varda’s bold human tenderness, and Jacques Demy’s melancholic yet romantic precision. The publication becomes a study in attitude, rebellious yet refined, experimental yet elegant.
Design Approach
Typography
The body text, set in Proxima Nova, provides modern structure and clarity, grounding the system across all sections. French Aperitif introduces a human voice, with its bold weight recalling protest posters, and its script capturing the lyricism of handwriting. Chapman adds theatrical contrast and elegance. Together, they balance intellect and emotion, protest and poetry.
Design Approach
Layout
The publication uses multiple grid systems that let type and image shift between order and disruption. Pacing, white space, mirroring, and overlapping create a rhythm that echoes the New Wave’s tension and spontaneity.
Color
Black on white grounds the publication in French minimalist modernism. Within, black and white reflect Jean-Luc Godard’s defiance, red and blue evoke French nationalism, coral captures Agnès Varda’s warmth and vitality, and royal blue embodies Jacques Demy’s romantic melancholy.
From here, the publication slips into each director’s stylistic world...
Film still from A Woman Is a Woman (1961), directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
ARTICLE I: JEAN-LUC GODARD
Design Approach
Godard’s section captures postmodern defiance through bold contrast, fractured grids, and rhythmic tension. Each element translates his confrontational style and political urgency.
Typography
Set in Proxima Nova, a sans-serif echoing the typography of Godard’s film titles and posters, the spreads reflects his authority and irony. Text sprawls, interrupts itself, and resists smooth readability, transforming type into language as didactic, self-aware, and ideologically charged.
Chapter Page
The chapter title page (above) introduces a dissected lowercase “i,” motif extended through subheadings and pull quotes as a nod to Godard’s recurring typographic motif in his film titles and posters. The form also references Anna Karina’s eye, grounding the design in his self-aware language of spectatorship.
Diagonal composition creates movement and tension, mirroring the rhythm of Godard’s jump cuts. Intersecting lines direct the gaze while suggesting duality and instability.
Design Approach
Layout
Layouts fracture and collide, with images and text overlapping to create a mild, deliberate discomfort. The broken grid produces a restless rhythm that mirrors Godard’s abrupt editing. Each spread becomes cinematic montage on the page.
Color
High contrast in black, white, red, and blue creates tension and urgency. The palette recalls the French flag and Godard’s fixations with nationalism, politics, and provocation. Color functions as both signifier and weapon, punctuating the spreads with intensity.
Film still from One Sings, The Other Doesn't (1977), directed by Agnès Varda.
ARTICLE II: AGNÈS VARDA
Concept Approach
Varda’s section is fiery yet tender, rooted in radical femininity and passion. The design channels protest energy, evoking both a handwritten postcard and a sign held high.
Typography
French Aperitif in bold and script variants soften Proxima Nova’s geometry, its handwritten quality carrying warmth and vulnerability. Enlarged pull quotes amplify key phrases with fervor, conviction, and care.
Design Approach
Layout
The layout of this section follows the logic of collage and photo albums, shifting between intimacy and momentum. Clean columns and open spacing mirror Varda’s pacing, where quiet gestures merge with political charge. Each page feels assembled by hand, part memory, part protest.
Color
Coral embodies warmth, energy, and vitality, blending the sensitivity of pink with the optimism of orange. This hue symbolizes creativity and connection, qualities central to Varda’s world. Within the spreads, coral surrounds both color and black-and-white images, illuminating Varda’s quieter tones with vibrancy and life.
Film still from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), directed by Jacques Demy.
ARTICLE III: JACQUES DEMY
Concept Approach
Demy’s section captures cinematic melancholy through visual harmony. His world of pastel romanticism turns heartbreak into architecture and choreography. The design mirrors the tension between idealism and grief, transforming nostalgia into spectacle.
Typography
Chapman leads with high-contrast elegance and precision, evoking the refined glamour of mid-century French cinema. Proxima Nova provides clarity and balance, grounding Chapman's theatrical presence. Together, they reflect Demy’s blend of artifice and sincerity.
Chapter Page
The chapter title page (above) situates Jacques Demy within his own cinematic universe. Figures from newer films rest on his shoulder, symbolizing how modern cinema continues his legacy.
The collage structure mirrors Demy’s layered storytelling, blending nostalgia, choreography, and emotion. The bold blue backdrop and vivid color contrasts extend his world of pastel romanticism, transforming homage into a contemporary stage of influence.
Design Approach
Layout
Layouts emphasize symmetry, rhythm, and reflecting Demy’s architectural compositions and fascination with pairs, lovers, sisters, and parallel worlds. Each spread stages a visual duet between one of his films and a modern counterpart, balancing image and text like set pieces in a musical. The design draws from interior design principles of order, proportion, and repetition to create harmony within structured elegance.
Color
Royal blue anchors the palette, embodying Demy’s balance of melancholy and vibrancy. Super-saturated pastels and luminous primaries echo the vivid palettes within paired images from Demy’s films and their contemporary reflections. The hues mirror across eras, transforming cinematic nostalgia into radiant visual harmony.
Colophon
Front and Back Cover
Design Approach
The front and back covers mirror one another, balancing restraint with spontaneity. The French editorial minimalism feels clean, structured, and slightly flirty, setting the tone for the publication. The design captures the New Wave’s charm and tension between order, wit, and emotion.
Typography
Proxima Nova anchors the design in clarity and consistency. French Aperitif, used in both script and bold all-caps forms, adds warmth and messy personality. Together they balance precision and playfulness, reflecting the dual nature of New Wave cinema.
Design Approach
Layout
Composition centers on proportion, symmetry, and mirroring. The pairing of black-and-white and color stills bridges eras, highlighting the conversation between past and present. White space brings rhythm and elegance, creating a sense of cinematic breath.
Color
A restrained palette of white, black, and selective color accents reinforces simplicity and emotion. The black-and-white imagery conveys nostalgia and truth, while the color still adds vibrancy and allure. The balance feels refined, lively, and distinctly French.
Process Sketches
Project Details
Project type: 32-page editorial booklet and typography study
Role: Art direction, design, and content curation. Selected and sequenced existing articles to create a cohesive visual and narrative dialogue across the publication.
Programs used: Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Lightroom
Deliverables: Printed and digital booklet mockups
Printing: Mixam: Perfect bound (PUR) paperback, full-color printing on 100lb uncoated text with 120lb uncoated cover, 7 × 9 in.
Film still from Masculin Féminin (1966), directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
* This is an independent student project created for educational purposes. All rights to films, images, and written articles belong to their respective owners. This work is not affiliated with or endorsed by Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, or any filmmakers, studios, or estates associated with the French New Wave.