Plain Text is a publication for contemporary type design, created by type foundry Plain Form. Each issue features diverse content — essays, interviews, portfolios, re-publications, fiction as well as visual works — to satiate both type design experts, with contributions from or about recognized practitioners just as well as recent students, and the generally curious, with insights valuable to anyone interested in language and communication.

Benjamin Dumond on typography as a multiple practice.
Eugénie Bidaut on legibility, inclusivity and odd contrast methods.
Luther R. Marsh frames letters as humble forms with world-shaping force.
Three type design projects tuned to rhythm, drums, and improvisation.
Eyes, letters and society: Thomas Huot-Marchand on Émile Javal.
Alex Balgiu explores the visual grammar of ornament.
Conversation with Johanna Drucker on the life and magic of alphabets.
Asemic writing and the play of absence, by Gabriele Čepulytė.
Strokes and whispers of unseen worlds, collected by Hélène Marian.
In the shadows of alphabets: Lucas Descroix roams with Marc Pessin.
In Mankun Guo’s work, type stirs, shifts, and takes shape.
Ariel Martín Pérez reflects on absent letters in the Canaries Islands.
Stories with bits of letters inside: new fictions from Plain Form.

Tim Brookes from Endangered Alphabets explores the alterity of writing systems.
Non-static letters from Aliona Ciobanu and Alec Vivier-Reynaud.
Inner dialogue from the collective behind the Inscript festival.
Benjamin Dumond looks at cinema for typographic concepts.
A dialectic view on type design by Marcus Leis Allion.
Simon Renaud creates a dialogue between inspirations and research.
A short fiction by Mardi Forestier, where variations infuse meaning.
Conversation with Hervé Aracil: teaching, invention and Gilles Deleuze.
Exploratory works from HAW Hamburg, with Pierre Pané-Farré.
Different ways of dealing with historical sources by Lucas Descroix.

Lucas Descroix views type families through parables.
A dive into Anne-Dauphine Borione’s energetic letters.
Printing might be pure evil, according to William Skeen.
Eager Zhang’s poetic outlook on type and languages.
A conversation with Stefan Ellmer about (non-)sense.
Ayasha Khan explores the border between text and images.
What Benjamin Dumond means when he says “experimental”.
Non-verbal links in a well-arranged array of images.
Zuzana Licko brings type design mechanisms into other fields.
Fonts destroy the world, by Verso Wurm, illustrated by Arman Mohtadji.
Archeologist Kirsten D. Dzwiza on letters and ancient magic.
Reading intentions and building bridges between typefaces.
Plain Form operates without a distributor,
however Plain Text can be found in a number
of selected stores. If you run a bookstore or cultural
institution and would like to see some Plain Text
on your shelves, feel free to get in touch, we would
love to hear from you.
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Retail price: 14€
Wholesale price: 10€
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Plain Form
8 cours Général Giraud
69001 Lyon
France
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text.plain-form.com
text@plain-form.com