Robert Massin is a highly influential French graphic artist and a key figure in the history of 20th-century book design. Massin's career began in Paris in the 1950s, and he has since worked with an extensive range of renowned publishers and cultural institutions. In 1958, he began working for preeminent French publishers Gallimard, where he spent the next 20 years developing their design department and launching new titles, including the Folio series — a popular collection of pocket books still much-loved by the French public today.

Massin has collaborated with many famous playwrights and writers, including Eugène Ionesco and Raymond Queneau. His experimentation with "expressive typography" in Ionesco's La Cantatrice chauve and Queneau's Exercices de Style are masterpieces of book design and illustrate a unique, creative adventure in the history of typography.

Massin is the first monograph on Massin to be published in English, and discusses in detail his explorations into book design, art direction, typography, design education, and writing, as well as the man behind this impressive body of work. The author had unrestricted access to the designer's personal archives, and carried out her research in collaboration with the artist himself. Laetitia Wolff's lively text is accompanied by detailed examinations of Massin's designs and specially commissioned photographs, and is an essential reference work on the creative mind of this innovative designer.

Featured in this week's Flavorpill, Massin appears in person for a discussion at Parsons School of Design (55 W 13th St) at 6pm on Wed Nov 7.