Pascal Melchior

Studios and publishers we work alongside

The magazine is built on long-term relationships with independent studios, type foundries, print shops and cultural institutions. These are the partners who share material, open their archives and let us document work in progress before it reaches a portfolio.

Studio Formafantasma

Opened their sketchbooks and material library for our process series, allowing us to reproduce early prototypes and failed iterations alongside the finished commissions.

Grilli Type Foundry

Provided specimen sheets and production notes for our typography review column, including details on spacing corrections and variable font testing across print and screen.

Risograph Club Rotterdam

Hosted a two-day print residency documented in our latest issue, covering ink registration faults, paper grain direction and the economics of short-run publishing.

Atelier Dyakova

Shared reference boards and client correspondence from a recent identity project, showing how editorial grids travel from book covers into exhibition signage.

Counter-Print

Contributed a curated selection of independent publications for our annual print review, with annotations on binding choices, paper weights and colour separation.

Museum of Design Zurich

Opened their poster archive for a comparative study of Swiss typographic traditions, giving us access to original proofs and correction marks from the 1960s.

Our work is documented the way it happens: with sketches, failed iterations, reference boards and production notes beside the finished pieces. This page collects the principles that guide what we publish and why we publish it.

Why Pascal Melchior exists

Process over polish We show the working stages of a project, not just the final frame. Early sketches, rejected directions and material tests are treated as essential parts of the record, because they explain how a decision was actually reached.
Long-form interviews Each issue carries extended conversations with multidisciplinary creators about their visual identity, typography and photography choices. The questions stay concrete: what was tried, what failed, what changed after a client review.
Documentary studio portraits We photograph workspaces as they are, not as staged sets. Pinboards, reference piles, half-empty coffee cups and production notes all appear in the frame, giving readers a honest sense of the environment behind the work.
Annotated portfolios Selected projects are presented with margin notes that explain the brief, the constraints, the type system and the print production details. The annotation is meant to be useful to another practitioner, not to flatter the author.
Material experiments Regular columns cover typeface reviews, print techniques, exhibition visits and emerging visual trends from independent studios. The focus stays on what can be observed and reproduced, not on vague industry talk.
Honest reflection We publish reflections on creative workflows that include dead ends and revisions. The expected effect for the reader is a clearer sense of how design decisions are made under real constraints, with real deadlines.

Who we are

An independent magazine for design culture

Pascal Melchior is a print-first publication documenting visual identity, typography and studio practice. We work for designers, art directors and students who want the unpolished record of how work actually gets made, not just the final frame.

Process over polish

Every issue carries sketches, failed iterations, reference boards and production notes alongside finished work. We believe the decisions that get cut are as instructive as the ones that survive.

Editorial line

Long-form studio portraits

We visit workspaces, photograph pinboards and shelves, and interview multidisciplinary creators about their routines, constraints and material experiments. The environment is part of the story.

Documentary approach

Print culture first

Typeface reviews, print production techniques and exhibition visits anchor each issue in the physical world. We cover the smell of ink and the weight of paper as seriously as we cover pixels.

Regular columns

Independent voices

Our contributors come from small studios across India, Europe and beyond. We track emerging visual trends from the margins, not the mainstream, and give space to honest reflections on creative workflows.

Global network

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