Opinel, au fil de l’histoire

For its 125th birthday, Opinel, Savoy’s world-renowned knives brand, decided to publish a book about its history. Written by Jean-François Mesplède, this book tells the saga of this incredible family who originated the famous wooden-handled knives, illustrated by numerous documents sourced from the company archives and photographs by Thierry Vallier.

This rich and diverse content (testimonies, interviews, storytelling, technical documentation, anecdotes, maps, ancient and contemporary pictures…) was a challenge for Superscript², in charge of the book design. They chose a pretty wide palette of typefaces to complete the job: the main storyline about the family is set in National, all the extra-content is set in Proto Grotesk — using a lot of alternate glyphs (‘t’, ‘C’, ‘J’, ‘R’) in the text and the alternate condensed numerals for titling — while Stanley serves for captions, running titles and a few quotes. Their own Helmut typeface is the cherry on the top, used for the cover and several playful titles across the book, mixing its widths in the composition.

Éditions Pages d’Écriture / 160 pages / 22 × 27,5 cm