Tools #5
210 x 290 mm, 248 pages
Paris, France (French and English-language)
Annual
Editor-in-chief: Clémentine Berry
Art direction: Twice studio
Graphic design: Malou Messien
This year’s edition of Tools is here! Celebrating the act of making—the combination of hand and mind that underlies any act of manufacture—the magazine concerns the meeting of art and science, mixing techniques old and new.
Like MacGuffin, this is a magazine that uses the seemingly prosaic to unlock bigger stories of human endeavour. The method under the microscope this time takes a more abstract approach, ‘To Spin,’ nodding to the way everything on earth is in perpetual motion, spinning and turning with the planet.
The issue opens with a high-gloss series of photographs of funfair rides shot by Tom Johnson, spilling into historical insight on rolling machinery, water mills, windmills, and even spinning as a way to store—from a cable wheel to music im printed on a vinyl record, and how this manufactured act of rotation has enabled humans to achieve greater precision since before the middle ages. It’s a calming experience to read through the process of making a blown-glass rondel or the rituals of a twirling ballerina from the Paris Opera Ballet, plus more awe-striking content that stretches what ‘To Spin’ connotes. Très beaux!