Les•partisans•du•moindre•effort (proponents of the line of least resistance) form a fringe graphic action structure with respect to the professional activity of each of its members. Active in various ways for about ten years now, the group combines people from fields as wide apart as graphic design, typography and type design, architecture or even literature. Working together or separately on different visual communication projects, we explore various possibilities of action and the circulation of information at lesser, or even no cost, now by using internet since autumn 2003.

By means of this site, we provide quality digital objects (posters, articles, books, etc.) which can be downloaded free of charge, filed and reconstructed by the user at home in paper form. Two versions are generally provided, one optimized for home-printing, the other for screen display. To use the words of the designer Victor Papanek, “the result would be a mass produced object, in the meaning of the Bauhaus, but where each piece would be involved with a differentiation potential” [note: full quotation: “… potential; in the framework of the Modern Movement, creators rejected the emotional signifiance of local traditions or materials and worked with the (naïve) conviction that the form, content or interest of their works would be universal.”, in Design for the Real World, Human Ecology and Social Change, 1970].

Moreover, our area is not restricted to graphic formulation but also covers writing and critical analysis. We thus propose original articles and reference links, notably concerning the history of typography and graphic design or contemporary creative practice. Urban epigraphy (mural inscriptions, signalling, lettering, graffiti, etc.) envisaged from the viewpoint of the overall phenomenon of metropolization & suburbanization [note: this world-wide phenomenon is characterized by the dual simultaneous movement of concentration towards the different metropolis and a spatial extension/dissemination of their urban areas. On this subject may notably be consulted the analysis of Françoise Choay, such as “The Urban Reign and the Death of Towns” in the excellent catalogue The Town, Art and Architecture in Europe 1870-1993, edited by the Georges Pompidou Center in 1994, or Melvin M.Webber, The Urban Place and the Nonplace Urban Realm (first published in 1964), covering the impact on the town of the evolution of transportation and communication], also constitutes one of our preferential spheres of exploration.

Please don't hesitate to contact us and share with us, by text or picture, the use you have made of our various proposals…