Discover how Pentagram's Sascha Lobe created modular typography in the latest Shoplifters

Published by Actual Source Books – an American publisher, brand and book store which collaborates with creatives to release limited runs of their work – Shoplifters is a uniquely designed hardback book that changes its format, size and paper every issue.

Released earlier this week and available to buy now from its site or Counterprint, Shoplifters Issue 10 is a hefty tome that covers Sascha Lobe's recent Bibliothèque Nationale du Luxembourg project, plus profiles of Nick Benson, Elias Hanzerof and AllCaps.

As its feature with the Pentagram Partner reports, Lobe was tasked with creating a custom and coherent modular typography system with typefaces that can be morphed physically. Sascha was uniquely suited to this brief, which needed to quickly and efficiently direct visitors around a library with nearly two million books. On top of that, his work also needed to merge both signage and architecture while simultaneously respecting its environment.

The challenges of this project were many, but as Lobe explains in his interview, he took great pains to develop typographic modules that could be added to larger sizes yet still look crisp when scaled. He said: "Everything in art and design is a matter of scale and context – a fact that is easy to overlook when you're sitting at your computer designing a typeface or a poster."

Also making their debut in Issue 10 of Shoplifters are stone carver Nick Benson and Elias Hanzerof. Nick runs The John Stevens Shop in Rhode Island, which specialises in one of a kind of inscriptions in stone. Meanwhile, Elias co-founded Hanzer Liccini in 2008, a studio specialising in graphic design and typography with a heuristic approach.

Another showcase in Issue 10 is AllCaps, an international practice of trained type designers who produce typefaces overlapping research, technology and visual culture. The primary book typefaces in Shoplifters Issue 10 are Prisma Text by Robert Huber from Lineto and Tschichold Rund Mondo by Ben Fehrman-Lee.

Shoplifters Issue 10 is available to order now. In Europe, the book can be ordered from Antenne Books, while Australians can pick it up from Perimeter Books.