Thomas Hervé creates a rational typographic identity system for fashion design programme 0-93. Lab

0-93. Lab is a fashion design and visual arts initiation programme for 14 to 24-year-olds from Aulnay and Sevran in France. The free-to-attend course is a space for research and experimentation, teaching participants the basics of creating a clothing collection, photographic series and artistic installation.

The independent Paris-based design studio of Thomas Hervé centred 0-93. Lab’s visual identity around an intelligent yet straightforward grid system. Its rigid, binary-inspired typographic hierarchy is intentionally simple, allowing the visual language to be manageable for in-house designers in the long haul.

The typeface is Folio, a realist sans serif that was designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum in 1957 for the Bauer Type Foundry. It is considered part of the ‘International Typographic Style’ alongside Helvetica and Univers – all three are modelled on Akzidenz Grotesk. Hervé tells us that he selected it for its “historic touch and peculiar design”.

As the primary colour, the super-bright red adds vibrant energy to the neutral imagery and works in contrast with the straightforward nature of the overall design system.

Thomas Hervé