Tools #6: To Blow

 
Publisher Tools Magazine

We admit it: we chose this theme in part because it makes us laugh. In French, souffler (to blow), gonfler (to inflate), and faire du vent (to talk a lot while saying nothing; literally, "to blow wind") are relatively innocent. In English, "to blow" can be much more ambiguous. All the better. We like words that can't be contained by their own definitions. And "to blow" can also mean to fail at something; "to blow up" can mean to explode, or to do away with assumptions and start over; and of course, you can "blow someone's mind." This is a great way to sum up what we try to do in every issue: start with a simple word and see how far it can take us. This time, we go where the wind blows.

As we were putting this issue together, we realized that air is everywhere, and we almost never think about it. Yet it's where everything starts. Air enters and leaves our bodies thousands of times a day. It fills our lungs, makes our vocal cords vibrate, and carries sounds, smells, pollen, smoke, and sometimes even ideas. We wanted to take a closer look at the invisible mechanism that keeps us alive.

Throughout these pages, we often come back to the breath. The breath that flows through our respiratory systems, that we hold, and that we sometimes can't get enough of. That, too, on which our shared future depends. Because we only need to look around to realize that breathing could become much more difficult. Between pollution, global warming, ever more energy-intensive infrastructures, and the generalized anxieties of our times, the question of air has become as political as it is personal. Inhaling and exhaling have never felt both as natural and as fragile as they do right now.  

The fifth issue of the annual magazine that promotes know-how and technique in design, craft or industry looks at the act of blowing: an issue about breath, wind, lungs, pneumatics, instruments, birds, balloons, crystal, bouncy castles, and all kinds of other things that come to life with air.  

Softcover
8.5 x 11.5 inches
248 pages
2026