Michèle Champagne
@michelechampagne
Art director, M.Des. — Graphic art. Publication design across media. Research on mandatory positivity and its effect on freedom of the press and the media of architecture and “smart” cities. Invited to Harvard GSD, McGill, and UQAM. michelechampagne.com
The best typesetters and lawyers I know understand this: typographyforlawyers.com/straight-and...
Melly Shum Hates Her Job, by Canadian Ken Lum, 1989–1990. It was originally a poster for Lum’s solo exhibition at Witte de With in Rotterdam. The people of the city loved Melly so much, they eventually renamed the art house in her honour: Kunsinstituut Melly.
This print looks fascinating. And I love the idea that a river sets “the rythm of the landscape and life around it”, in this case the Maas River in Rotterdam. iabr.nl/en/biennales...?
Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1886
The winter 2025 issue of Aperture magazine published an issue on how “AI” is changing images and our understanding of reality, privacy, and democracy. With contributions from – @paglen.studio – @katecrawford.bsky.social – @robhorning.bsky.social store.aperture.org/products/ape...
Positivity is not the problem, it’s the “mandatory” part. Those who are mandatorily positive about American circular “AI” investment are Trump’s American tech advisors, and those who are mandatorily positive about Carney’s “AI for All” plan are Carney’s Canadian tech advisors.
I missed this in 2025: Appleby Blue Almshouse in London won the RIBA Stirling. It’s senior social housing next to heritage that doesn’t fall back on nostalgia. It offers co-living, a courtyard, and indoor social spaces. Designed by Witherford Watson Mann Architects. Photography by Philip Vile.
In France, La Lune was a great 19th century satirical journal, drawn by the preeminent caricaturist André Gill.
Les Lettres françaises is still publishing in 2026, albeit with a more traditional literary journal maquette—without the urgent headlines, playful drop caps, narrow typesetting, broadsheet format, or newsprint stock. The new design is rather flat.
Last night I watched The Woman Who Left Picasso, a documentary about artist Françoise Gilot with whom Picasso had two children. And I came across the letter he penned in Les Lettres françaises, trying to silence her and her book after she left. The literary magazine had a lovely newspaper maquette.
Some critics may be tempted to look down on these aesthetically, accuse them of looking washed up or like garbage. But jewellery—esp. fine jewellery—has been strong in the “ugly” department for a decade plus. This is from Completedworks in London, featured in Wallpaper and FT’s HTSI, among others.
Meetings began at Biblioteca Casanatense, the private library of a religious order at the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. “Within the complex in 1633, church inquisitors forced ... Galileo Galilei to renounce his belief that the sun was at the centre of the universe.”
Caffè Italia is a sweet spot in Montreal’s Little Italy, and I always noticed the photography on the walls.
And so is this: IABR will also be at the The Piekfabriek at the Hunter Douglas terrain in Rotterdam. The site is “located on the Maas River and covers approx. six hectares. In the coming years, it will transform from a former industrial area into a new urban neighborhood.” iabr.nl/en/biennales...
This is adaptive reuse. The site where International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam will take place: a former plague house. And “the bizarre thing is that the plague house was ultimately never actually used for the plague because a cure was discovered.” iabr.nl/en/biennales...
When talking about the affordable “missing middle”, talk about the middle scale, like this: the co-operative Nieuwe Meent in Amsterdam has 6 stories, 40 private units, shared spaces, timber construction, and geothermal and solar installs. Rents: $720–1,200 CAD/month. – by @markminkjan.bsky.social
“Many Canadians have been forced into the ‘nohousing-choice’ position in which a third to one-half of their regular income goes for housing. In this process they do not necessarily gain better quality, but may be forced into accommodation that is considered to be substandard.” – Chapter 3, page 40
Tools: a great bilingual magazine that I noticed at Semaine Design de Montréal, which just ended. Its dining hall was fantastic, with massive blush tables adorned with tulips from Prune’s gardens on the south shore. – tools-inc.com/en/magazine – www.semainedesigndemontreal.com – prunelesfleurs.com
A private monopoly that can be dysfunctional and excels at regulatory capture. The CN Railway case goes deep—institutionally (public, private) and culturally (how land is conceived, stretched, used, abused). Railcuts #8 (Red hill, C.N. train) C.N. Track, Thompson River, B.C. Edward Burtynsky, 1985
Why the Canada-US crisis is not a mere Trump thing: “This is the logic of globalization unveiled, turning itself back on the States. It’s the Nixon moment revisited ... in which America loses control—as the sorcerer’s apprentice does—of its own artefact: the globalized, financialized economy.”
A few years later: “Forcing through NAFTA ... took all of the Clinton administration’s energy in its early years. Much of the energy that might have gone into healthcare went into NAFTA ... This is a point that will have significant consequences for the very end of my story in a few minutes time.”
If graphic art culture was better known, this would be better known: Here is what the poster looked like.
I remember when Canadian magazines talked about housing—and its cost—seriously and independently. Today, we have the odd “residential” issue coming from these things called magazines but that are industry press releases glued together with no original photography available.
“They may come to miss the old days of relative obscurity,” writes Dyer. No! Too little media, diplomacy, and trade are the problem. Meanwhile, I’ll continue advocating for a Canadian general interest magazine, one that could travel. I envy the old Saturday Night and Le Monde's new M International.
I’m really into Giaime Meloni’s photography and book projects: giaimemeloni.com
We need to talk about “context”, because while Canadians and their politicians say no to housing, Paris is building social housing that looks like this—with glassy façades, bay windows, mass timber, hemp cement, and a single stair.