EDITIONS B42 S.A.R.L.

What EDITIONS B42 S.A.R.L. does

Éditions B42 S.A.R.L. is a French independent publishing house founded in 2008 and headquartered in Montreuil, near Paris, that specializes in books, annual reviews, and limited objects focused on graphic design, typography, architecture, and visual culture. The company operates two flagship periodical series — the Back Cover review (seven issues, focused on graphic design and typography) and the Back Office annual review (five issues, focused on digital practices, co-edited with Fork Éditions) — alongside a catalog of approximately 150 monographs, scholarly works, and artist or designer books, often published bilingually in French and English. Its catalog addresses specialized topics such as design history, contemporary visual arts, skateboarding culture, dance, fashion, and more recently queer theory and postcolonial studies, with prices ranging from €7 to €39 per title and select titles also available as EPUB and PDF editions.

The business model is direct-to-consumer e-commerce through editions-b42.com combined with physical distribution via bookshops and a co-edition channel with Fork Éditions. The company is privately held under French S.A.R.L. law, with no external venture or private equity investment, and operates with a small team of approximately 5 employees led by founder Alexandre Dimos. Production is supported by a network of institutional partners — including the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), art schools (Esad Amiens, Esad Grenoble Valence), contemporary art centers (Mrac Occitanie, Passerelle, Ferme du Buisson), and corporate patrons (Galeries Lafayette, Pernod Ricard Foundation, ADAGP) — which provide both publication grants and co-production support. There is no proprietary technology platform; the competitive position rests on editorial curation, bilingual scholarship, and an embedded network of academic and cultural collaborators.

Name

EDITIONS B42 S.A.R.L.

Legal name

EDITIONS B42 S.A.R.L.

Website

https://editions-b42.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2008

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Éditions B42 S.A.R.L. is a French independent publishing house (founded 2008, Montreuil) producing bilingual French/English books and annual reviews on graphic design, typography, architecture, and visual culture, serving design professionals, academics, and cultural enthusiasts through direct e-commerce and bookshop distribution.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Art and Design Publishing

NAICS

Book Publishers (51313), Periodical Publishers (51312)

SIC

Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731), Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721)

akta.pro primary industry

Lifestyle, Travel & Leisure Books Publishing (MPAJAAAH)

Keywords

• Independent publishing
• Design publishing
• Graphic design books
• Typography publications
• Visual culture books

Headquarters

HQ city

Montreuil

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Book Sales: One-time purchase revenue from physical books and publications covering design, typography, architecture, and visual arts. Prices range from €7 to €39 per item.
2. Magazine Sales: Annual review publications (Back Office, Back Cover) sold as periodicals, priced around €9.50-€20.
3. E-book Sales: Digital editions (epub and PDF) of selected titles available for purchase, typically priced at €8-€13.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Éditions B42 is an independent French publishing house that produces and sells books, magazines (revues), and limited objects focused on graphic design, typography, architecture, art, and visual culture. The catalog of approximately 150 titles includes two flagship annual review series — Back Cover (graphic design and typography) and Back Office (graphic design and digital practices, co-edited with Fork Éditions) — alongside monographs, scholarly works, and thematic collections. Publications are sold directly via the company's e-commerce website, through physical bookshops, and as EPUB/PDF e-books.

Product overview

Éditions B42 is a French independent publishing house specializing in books, magazines (revues), and objects focused on design, graphic design, typography, architecture, art, and visual culture. The company operates primarily as a book publisher with two flagship journal series: the annual review 'Back Office' exploring graphic design and digital practices (issues 1-5), and 'Back Cover' magazine examining graphic design and typography (issues 1-7). Additionally, they publish monographs on designers and artists, scholarly works on architecture and urban studies, and thematic collections including skateboarding documentation by Raphaël Zarka. The publisher also produces limited objects and maintains active co-editions with Fork Éditions.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Back Cover: A review of reflection and analysis on graphic design practices and typography, and more broadly visual arts. Features contributions from international figures who make or analyze the visual environment.
• Back Office

Products and services

• Back Cover (review series on graphic design and typography) A recurring review focused on reflection and analysis of graphic design practices and typography, featuring contributions from international figures who make or analyze the visual environment. Issues are sold as periodicals priced around €9.50–€20.
• Back Office (annual review on graphic design and digital practices) An annual review encompassing graphic design and digital activities, exploring creative processes in contemporary media and digital practices. Co-published with Fork Éditions and sold as a periodical priced around €9.50–€20.
• L'Artiste-Chercheur (book) A scholarly book by Sandra Delacourt on the emergence of the artist-researcher and its relationship to American democracy and the university system, tracing the trajectory through Donald Judd.
• Frédéric Teschner (monograph) A monograph dedicated to French graphic designer Frédéric Teschner (1972-2016), presenting his career through photographs, objects, and contributions from cultural figures who collaborated with him.
• B Comme Bauhaus (book) An 'alphabet of the modern world' by Deyan Sudjic exploring the heterogeneous forms that constitute contemporary visual imagination, from the Eames Lounge chair to the QWERTY keyboard.
• Paint Everyday - Camila Oliveira Fairclough (monograph) First monographic work on Brazilian artist Camila Oliveira Fairclough, presenting paintings created between 2014 and 2024 exploring the status of painting and the recurrence of motifs.
• Crawling, Doubles (book) Publication examining colonial collecting practices and the epistemological, museographical, and ethical questions raised by objects in European collections.
• Riding Modern Art (book) Collection of 70 black and white photographs of people skateboarding on sculptures in public spaces, exploring the relationship between skateboarding and modern sculpture.
• E-books (EPUB and PDF digital editions) Digital editions in EPUB and PDF formats of selected catalog titles, sold directly through the website at lower price points than the corresponding physical editions.
• Objects and accessories (notebooks, patches, small branded items) Limited small-format objects and accessories (notebooks, patches) branded under Éditions B42, sold alongside books and magazines through the e-commerce website.

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Fork ÉditionscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-edition partner for the Back Office annual review, which explores graphic design and digital practices. This is an ongoing partnership across multiple issues of the magazine.
• Passerelle (Centre d'art contemporain)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-edition partner for Frédéric Teschner monograph. Passerelle is a contemporary art center that collaborated on this publication about the French graphic designer.
• CNAP (Centre national des arts plastiques)coreOthersMajor institutional supporter providing publication grants. CNAP support is explicitly acknowledged on multiple publications including Back Office and Back Cover magazines.
• École supérieure d'art et de design d'AmiensminorOthersEducational partner that provided support for the Frédéric Teschner publication and serves as an institutional collaborator.
• Esad Grenoble ValenceminorOthersÉcole supérieure d'art et design Grenoble-Valence is an academic partner supporting publications and research.
• Mrac OccitanieminorOthersMusée régional d'art contemporain, Sérignan, provided support for the Camila Oliveira Fairclough publication.
• ADAGPminorOthersFrench visual artists' rights society supported the Camila Oliveira Fairclough publication.
• Pernod Ricard FoundationminorOthersCorporate foundation providing cultural patronage support for art publications.
• Centre d'art contemporain de la Ferme du BuissonminorOthersPublished Crawling, Doubles in partnership with this contemporary art center in partnership with the 8th Berlin Biennale.
• Galeries Lafayette groupminorOthersMajor French luxury retailer group supported the Crawling, Doubles publication on colonial collecting.
• Esad AmiensminorOthersÉcole supérieure d'art et de design d'Amiens supported the A Book from deValence publication.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• MIT Press: Academic publisher with significant design, architecture, and visual studies lists. Operates at much larger scale; B42's scholarly tone and academic library audience place it in overlapping territory.
• Taschen: Mass-market art and design publisher known for high-quality visual books on architecture, design, and popular culture. Overlaps with B42's design and architecture content but operates at vastly larger scale and price points.
• Phaidon Press: Global art and design book publisher with extensive catalog of design, architecture, and visual arts monographs. Differs in scale and global distribution but competes for the same designer-monograph category.

Direct peers

• Fork Éditions: French independent publisher specializing in graphic design and digital practices. Direct co-publisher of Back Office with Éditions B42, operating in the same Paris-based design publishing niche with overlapping author networks.
• Verlag Hermann Schmidt: German independent publisher specializing in typography, graphic design, and visual communication. A focused European peer with a similar small-team, high-quality scholarly publishing model.
• Les Éditions de la Villette: French publisher focused on architecture, urban studies, dance, and design. Comparable in size, editorial emphasis on critical scholarship, and primary public of architects and cultural institutions.
• HYX éditions: French independent publisher based in Paris focused on architecture, design, urban studies, and visual culture. Closest direct competitor in subject matter, size, and editorial positioning within the French design publishing ecosystem.
• Lars Müller Publishers: Swiss independent publisher specializing in architecture, design, typography, and visual culture. Comparable in scale and editorial mission to B42, with shared audience of design schools and academic libraries across Europe.
• Princeton Architectural Press: US publisher specializing in architecture, design, landscape, and visual culture. Closest anglophone peer to B42's catalog in subject matter and target audience (designers, academics, cultural enthusiasts).

Regional players

• Actes Sud: Major French independent publisher with broader literary and non-fiction catalog but overlapping institutional and bookstore distribution in France. Comparable in its independent French-publisher character and direct-to-consumer orientation.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/revuebackoffice
• Facebookfacebook.com/editionsB42
• Instagraminstagram.com/editionsb42
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/editions-b42-s.a.r.l.

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about EDITIONS B42 S.A.R.L.