During the Spring of 2022, long time friend of the studio and photographer, Justin Chung connected us with creative director Leigh Patterson to begin the ground work for a collaborative publication between Faculty Department and Le Labo Fragrances. This was a dream collaboration for us, especially given the shared ideals between the two brands and our admiration for Le Labo.
Making Sense Vol.1 is “a study in distilling life to its essence, as told through the stories of 12 individuals who have fearlessly hand-crafted lives of their own making.”
With California as the connecting landscape between all 12 subjects, each of their stories tells the reader about their unique journey to their present day and what lessons they gathered along the way and now share with us.
Design
Throughout the next few months, Justin and Leigh traveled across California capturing each story while our studio began building the foundation for the book. Making Sense was quite a unique brand associated publication due to Le Labo’s desire to keep any product placements very subtle in order to let the subject’s stories take center stage. The creation of this publication also coincided with Justin’s desire to evolve the Faculty Department brand from a fairly refined appearance to a more rugged and archival quality. This evolution led us to updating the brand typefaces by incorporating New Century Schoolbook, Brook and Rauschen B—three typefaces that were selected based on archival references we found. Rauschen B in particular reminded us of the type often found along the rim of film camera lens.
For the book layout, we utilized a ten column grid while each story consisted of 9–10 layout variations. Each story concludes with the subject’s list of lessons to share with the reader. Continuing from Faculty Department Vol.2, a kraft paper stock was used for Making Sense as well since kraft is a staple in Le Labo’s iconic packaging.
