Jean de Merry
Rebrand & Textile Campaign
Branding
Art Direction
Storyboards
Embracing Renaissance Humanism
Christian Darnaud-Maroselli and Jean de Merry founded the namesake furniture line, JEAN DE MERRY, in 2001 with a mission to uphold the craft of a bygone era.
From a small French town where successive generations of de Merry’s family had operated a leather tanning business for four centuries, to creating a visionary home collection handcrafted at their Los Angeles workshop, JEAN DE MERRY has grown into an French Deco-inspired, artisanal line that sparks the imaginations of its clients, producing pieces that are timeless, unexpected and anchored by quality and craftsmanship.
For the duo, emphasis on the process has always been key to creating beautiful yet integral pieces. To create JEAN DE MERRY seating, lighting, case goods and decorative art, de Merry and Darnaud-Maroselli transferred their knowledge of age-old, French techniques for application on woods, leathers, shagreen, parchment and bronze to a new generation of American craftsmen. “It’s all in the method, says de Merry. “We’re applying very special methods to our materials.”
The typefaces of the first generation after Gutenberg were all based on contemporary handwritten forms. But with the Renaissance came a renewed interest in the inscriptional lettering of the classical period, especially the capital letters that come to us directly from Roman monuments. Attempting to dissect these letters scientifically was a common pastime among the most prominent Renaissance minds: Fra Luca de Pacioli, Geoffroy Tory, and Albrecht Dürer. Renaissance humanism aligned with the design philosophy of JEAN DE MERRY recalling the structure of classicism combined with artisan craftsmanship from the human hand.
