Spectaculinaire: a book mixing food, design and theatre designed by Studio Plastac

Food design and French theatre are perhaps the perfect partners. Playful culinary design and performance such as Julie Rothhahn’s bridges the gap between France’s food culture and theatre scene. A collaboration between the food designer and Le Manège de Reims, the theatre where she was an associate artist between 2007 and 2015, forms the foundation of a bilingual book designed by Studio Plastac. Having worked with her for a show in Centre Pompidou Metz in 2014, this isn’t the first time the Paris studio has collaborated with Rothhahn.

Taking the words “spectacular” and “culinary” as its starting point, the studio worked up an embossed typographic cover with no images, and played on the serial nature of Rothhahn’s food designs by multiplying the title in vertical columns. The idea of multiplication was Studio Plastac’s principal concept for the design, resulting in the typographic patterns that introduce each section and its corresponding colour. In parts, the letters are arranged as the culinary designer might arrange her tables, and make use of Colophon Foundry’s Raisonné font, which adds subtle movement to the otherwise with regimented layout.