Philippe Apeloig

Biography

Philippe Apeloig studied at the École supérieure des arts appliqués Duperré, then at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. It was during two internships undertaken in 1983 and 1985, at Wim Crouwel's Total Design in Amsterdam, that he became particularly interested in typography.

Philippe Apeloig began his career as a graphic designer in 1985 at Musée d’Orsay, where he implemented the visual identity conceived by Bruno Monguzzi and Jean Widmer, and created the poster for the first exhibition Chicago, naissance d’une métropole. In 1988, he obtained a grant from the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères and set off to work in Los Angeles with April Greiman. Back from California, Apeloig created his own studio in Paris in 1989, and became art director for the magazine Le Jardin des Modes.

In 1993-1994, he was a Fellow at l'Académie de France à Rome, Villa Médicis, where he developed original typographic fonts. From this work he obtained the Gold Award from the Tokyo Type Director Club. He was named art consultant of the Louvre museum in 1997, and became its art director from 2003 to 2007.

From 1992 to 1998, Philippe Apeloig has taught typography and graphic design at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (Ensad). In 1998, he moved to the United States for five years where he taught at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1999, he was hired Full-time faculty by the Cooper Union School of Art of New York, where he also occupied the position of curator of the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography.

Philippe Apeloig has created the logotypes and visual identities for Musée de France and Musée d’art et d’histoire du judaïsme in Paris, the IUAV (Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia) in Venice, the Châtelet Théâtre in Paris, the estate group Icade, Médiateur européen, the year of Brazil in France Brésil-Brésils (2004), the year Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence (2006), the Palais de la Découverte (2010), the Petit Palais - Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris, the French Institute / Alliance Française of New York (FIAF), the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Puiforcat, and l'Ameublement français (a French professional union that represents furniture industries and companies). He works with the publishers Flammarion, La Martinière, Le Serpent à Plumes, Phaidon, PUF, and Robert Laffont. He has been the official poster artist for the Fête du Livre d’Aix-en-Provence since 1997, and he has designed many other posters, among them one for the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Petit Palais in Paris in 2010. He has designed posters for numerous exhibitions, including Bateaux sur l’eau rivières et canaux for the Voies navigables de France, in Rouen; Wim Crouwel, A Graphic Odyssey dedicated to the work of the Dutch designer at the Design Museum of London; and Bewegte Schrift, an exhibition on animated typography presented at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich. In 2013, he designed the visual identity for the Saut Hermès at the Grand Palais in Paris. In 2015, the Maison Hermès also engaged him to create the numerals of the Hermès Slim watch, as well as to design a silk and cashmere shawl for men celebrating the centennial of the birth of Roland Barthes.

He is currently working with HW / Ateliers Jean Nouvel on the signage of the Louvre Abu-Dhabi.

Many of Philippe Apeloig's designs belong to the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 2013-2014, the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris gave him his first retrospective, entitled Typorama, which traced thirty years of his career; it was accompanied by the book Typorama (published by Les Arts Décoratifs in French and Thames & Hudson in English). For the occasion of the re-opening of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Museum, the poster Vivo in Typo was shown, accompanied by a series of sketches, which showed the creative process of the graphic designer.

He has contributed articles to the review Tind since 2013.

In fall 2015, the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam will present his work in an exhibition titled Philippe Apeloig - Using Type.

Awards and honors

Fonts

Philippe Apeloig is the creator of numerous fonts, published since 2013 by the type foundry Nouvelle Noire

Books

Selected exhibitions