Writing

Like a procession of Magi bringing to Europe the riches of the East, a treasure trove of Arabic words has come to enrich the verbal means by which we name the world. From Heaven to Earth, from sciences to beliefs, from natural substances to fabrics and clothes, from war to peace, many domains of our experience can hide or reveal their oriental origin, be it learned, poetic or familiar. Arabic words in French are often surprising, unexpected, like the swell of the ocean, the number of calculations, the elixir and the amber. and, in commercial life, the store or the customs. Comfort is not absent. Not only the couch and sofa are "Arab", but also the mattress. That the words "babouche" and "fez" are oriental, we are not surprised. But the "shawl", the "vest", the "skirt? And the "dome", the "mask" and the "masquerade"?

Biography of Pierre Duplan: Former student of the École normale supérieure de l'Enseignement technique, Pierre Duplan is an honorary professor at the École supérieure Estienne des arts et industries graphiques, better known as the École Estienne. 

This book presents the methods of making and preserving papyrus, the different techniques and scripts used by scribes, and the many uses of papyrus during the Pharaonic era, and then during the following periods, under Ptolemy and the Roman emperors.

Why do we say A, B, C, D, E... ? Who invented letters? And when?

Where do their shapes come from?

What is an alphabet?

What is the difference between the alphabet and writing?

Why do the letters of the alphabet come in the order we know them?

Encounters with remarkable forms

In Écritures, miroir des hommes et des sociétés, the author drew attention to writing as an image of man throughout his history. In this second essay, which is complementary to it, he questions the process of creating writing today.

Writing and painting have long been confused. Calligraphies in gold and purple, watercolours washed with Indian ink, primers in the form of bestiaries, engraved stones, and seals...

You lack confidence in writing, the right word, the adequate formula do not come when you have to write a personal letter etc... 

In this context of change, this book examines how to take useful notes in a wide variety of situations: courses, conferences, lectures, interviews, meetings, preparation of an oral intervention, readings, creative productions, personal organization.

Classification of typographic creations and construction for advertising works...

With examples and exercises, you will discover tools and techniques to approach all situations with serenity, to welcome change with agility and to reappropriate your daily life.

Thanks to some thirty exercises, writing becomes a repeated opportunity to manage everyday situations.

Preface by Roland Barthes, Presentation by François Richaudeau

The calligrapher's hand plays with the forms of the visible, with its transparencies as well as with its flat areas, with its almost unreal tenderness and its swells suspended in their gesture. She speaks to us the language of the invisible. Each of her ten fingers is a door of love in the turbulent overlapping of colors.

Taking the most diverse paths, scriptural forms are never the products of chance. Spurting out of both body and mind, writing is the expression of man's thought.