The book focuses on the graphic design studio's work for music, and especially with bands associated with the French Touch moment. It includes their major realizations in the field as well as several essays and an interview discussing their work politics and esthetic breakthrough.
The book comes with an original record, released on this occasion by musicians Alex Gopher, Air, and de Crécy & Darkel.
Since the mid-1990s, H5 have realized numerous record covers and visuals for small labels or majors (Sony, V2, BMG, Naïve, Virgin, Source, Solid, Record Makers, Pamplemousse, Missive, La Fondation, Denote Ltd, 20000ST, Small, EMI, Prototyp Record, Diamond Traxx, Choice, Born to Kill, Island), thus accompanying the development of French electronic music—what the British critics called the “French Touch.” Ludovic Houplain and Antoine Bardou-Jacquet (H5's founders, soon joined by Hervé de Crécy) started by making sleeves for their friends Etienne de Crécy and Alex Gopher, using typography rather than photos and an economical two-color esthetic—which finds one of its most striking example in the “Superdiscount” cover for Etienne de Crécy. Their video clip for “The Child” by Alex Gopher, a typographic animation, soon became a reference of this new style and brought them to collaborate with Röyksopp, Goldfrapp, or Massive Attack. Advertising contracts, for brands such as Audi, Volkswagen, Dior or Yves Saint Laurent, came in the 2000s and allowed the company to continue growing while elaborating their most ambitious project to date, “Logorama,” a short-film entirely built with existing logos and characters associated with a brand, due to be released on the next Cannes Film Festival.
