Malou Messien on her obsession with display type, secondhand book covers and Estonian design

When Malou Messien graduated from her master’s degree in graphic design, she dreamt only of designing books — “but it didn’t quite happen like that”, she says. “I now do editorial design, web design, visual identities and, well, only a few books.” In the design industry for several years, freelancing and working for various studios, Malou has come to realise that the media that she likes making the most sits somewhere at the junction between editorial design and visual identities, like a magazine. “Books are almost intimidating to me, they are like monuments, they must last over time,” she says. “What I like about magazines, for example, is that there are several issues over years, and there’s always room to do better with each issue.”

This idea has been pushed in her detailed design work on Tools Magazine an annual publication from Twice Studio that she has worked on for its past four issues. Through Tools, Malou has continued to generate interesting constraints on her typographic compositions by doing something new based on each issue’s subject of choice. “In Tools Magazine 2, To Braid, I thought of a layout into which I ‘wove’ English and French text. In the last issue To Cut, some columns are slanted or trimmed as bushes, to literally play with the theme.” Finding technical solutions to concepts like these is the part of the creative process that “gives me great satisfaction,” Malou says. “It doesn’t seem like much, but I think technique is quite important in my work. Being a good technician allows you to save time for the ‘creative’ part.”

For inspiration, in the gaps in between projects, Malou spends her time looking for new design references from all over the world. “I’ve been searching everything I could find about Estonian graphic designers Tõnis Vint, Villu Järmut and Endel Palmiste. I don’t know why, but I like to work by country. Lately it’s been Estonia, before that it was Sweden,” she explains. What interests Malou most is display typography or “when words become images”, so her search is often for lettering. She sets about finding old books and magazines, slowly building up an archive of covers from secondhand booksellers – a collection she refers to when starting up a new project. In this expanse of her typographic culture the designer is not necessarily always looking for novelty though: “I think an old font can be like new when you use it well.”