FRAMES

Fanzine and archive combinations on the eyewear industry

FRAMES is a fanzine published and distributed free of charge by Bidules in Brussels.

It is a project initiated and imagined by Nicolas Musty, whose graphic and visual aspect was conceived and produced by me.

Supported by the democratic aspect of the newspaper, the main idea behind this project was the transmission of archives and texts. We therefore proposed, through a dozen double pages, images and texts initially intended for a public of professional opticians, in order to bring to light certain technical elements essential to the machining of frames.

Like a loose toolbox and a cabinet of paper curiosities, FRAMES is not really readable, nor can it be understood. Yet it is an object of shared passion, the very fibre of Bidules. The newspaper provides common ground between Bidules and the public/customer but also indirectly between the optical industry. We have worked with archives and original texts, preserving their asperities (both in images and text) and the newsprint also helps to preserve defects. The assembly of the (unbound) newspaper also leads to uncertainty about the alignment page by page.