Laroche Pelletier Graphistes was a Montreal graphic design studio founded in 1968 by designers Yvon Laroche and Pierre-Yves Pelletier. The studio’s self-promotional advertisement, created in the same year, serves as the primary documented artifact of its visual identity. The 216mm by 216mm advert was designed by both partners to promote their newly established studio and was featured in the design annual Graphica 67, a publication the studio also designed.[1]
Design and History
The studio’s 1968 promotional advertisement combined ideas of form and structure with colour, showing the relationship that Cyan, Magenta and Yellow have to both Black and White. The headline quote at the top read “Ethics is the aesthetics of the future / L’éthique est l’esthétique de l’avenir,” attributed to Lenin (or Maxim Gorky according to Jean Luc Godard, who used it in his film Le Petit Soldat). The Canada Modern archive notes that the end result conveyed a clear point of view about the systematic application of design in a commercial context.[1]
Laroche and Pelletier shared a design studio in Old Montreal, where Pelletier was already an internationally known designer.[2] The studio also designed the Graphica 67 annual for the Graphica Club of Montréal, which celebrated the best work in advertising, editorial and television graphics.[3]
Both designers later contributed to the visual identity of the Montréal 1976 Olympic Games. Pelletier was named art director at COJO (the Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXI Olympiad), while Laroche worked within the COJO graphic and design directorate under Pelletier and Georges Huel.[2][4]
Meaning and Symbolism
The 1968 advertisement’s visual concept was explicitly systematic: it demonstrated the relationship between the four process colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) and White, presenting a structured view of how colour functions in commercial design. The accompanying Lenin quote framed the studio’s approach as an ethical commitment to aesthetic discipline.[1]
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