Découvrez Lessines

Published October 25, 2026

Découvrez Lessines (“Discover Lessines”) is a 54-page walking guide to the Belgian town of Lessines, initiated by the Hôpital Notre-Dame à la Rose and published in February 2022 in French and Dutch editions. Two routes lead the reader through the town's history and its characters, from Alix de Rosoit to René Magritte. I (Pascal Liénard) structured the raw content, took the photographs, and designed the layout and the illustrated map.

Stratos (designed by Yoann Minet and available from Production Type) carries the titles and the high-impact elements. Its particularity is a split personality: geometric lowercase with circular rounds, and condensed capitals inspired by wood type. Set in Black, upper- and lowercase, it gives the cover and chapter openers their weight. Set in Bold and in colour, it is used for the standfirsts and subtitles, each chapter (one area of the walk) having its own colour.

Each chapter opens with a large numeral in Astloch, designed by Dan Rhatigan, available from Google Fonts), a monolinear blackletter that ties in with the town's historical world, here modernised by its extremely fine line and by pop colours.

The compact feel of Stratos’s capitals is extended by Heading from Zetafonts, set mainly in its Compressed width and in all caps: it sets the section labels, the figures and the practical information (walk durations, distances, the map) as well as the discreet cross-references and notes. The running text is in Hannes von Döhren’s Supria Sans from HvD Fonts, in several weights. Rooted in the clarity of Swiss grotesques but softened by subtle curves and fine details, it reads easily and brings a positive, quietly cheerful tone to the pages. Its true italic, curvier than the usual sloped grotesque, sets the sidebars apart from the main text.

Fresh colours, changes of type size, columns and pull-outs build a rhythm that accompanies the reader along the walk, between the town's historical past and a contemporary layout.

The book is designed to be carried along: a pocket format, printed on a matte, uncoated paper that is pleasant to the touch, with the map on a double flap so that it can be unfolded easily during the walk. At the same time, it is a book in its own right, one that fully earns its place on a bookshelf.

See the full case study on pascallienard.com

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