‘We want to keep pushing what we do with print,’ says Micha Weidmann (see Pulp 04), whose exemplary identities, as well as physical and digital designs, for fashion brands, property companies, galleries, luxury retailers and publishers (including online design magazine Dezeen, founded by the late Marcus Fairs) have earned the Swiss-born art director an impressive reputation among fellow designers.
His challenge, in designing a desirable printed invitation for Kim Jones’s debut couture show for Fendi in Paris, was to create a sense of anticipation when nobody had seen – or could see – the new collection.
Weidmann made two invitations – one for online viewing (because of travel restrictions necessitated by Covid-19) and another for in-person attendees at the hotly awaited show. The covers and inserts were printed on Fedrigoni Arena Ivory rough, taking inspiration from the marbled covers and endpapers one sees in early twentieth-century books. Weidmann specified the details of manufacture in close collaboration with print consultant Murray Arbiter (ArbiterDrucken), with whom he has worked for almost two decades.
Weidmann stresses the ‘good manners’ involved in making a memorable, tactile invitation, with text, imagery, materials and finishing that reflects the ambitions of Jones’s work for Fendi. ‘It is couture, design informed by craftsmanship’ says Weidmann. ‘If we are not creative with paper, it will just join the list of things being replaced by digital.’
