Jean pol

The form of the letters you use to compose words and texts often expresses more than you suspect. With the series of exhibitions entitled Type An Sich, the Catapult design office awards the letter the attention it deserves. In the spring of 2005 our gallery presented the letters of the Dutch typographer Gerard Unger. This autumn it is his French colleague Jean François Porchez who is taking upthe torch.

At the age of 30, he convinced the management of the French daily Le Monde to replace Times New Roman with a typeface of his design. Such an achievement says a great deal about the character of Jean François Porchez. He has placed his passion for typography at the service of assignments for customers including the Paris metro, the Italian travel agency Costa Crociere, the pop starBeyoncé Knowles and the carmakers Peugeot and Renault.

Until the end of December you can admire the varied work of Porchez at the Catapult exhibition gallery.

Would you like to hear Jean François Porchez talk about his work? Then be sure to come to his presentation on Thursday 24 November. More details will be available shortly at www.typeansich.be.


Jean François Porchez

Life
JeanFrançois Porchez (born 1964) studied graphic design and focused on type design | 1991-1994 Worked as a type director for the renowned design office Dragon Rouge in Paris | 1994 Designed a new typeface for the leading French daily Le Monde | 1995 Set up his own sales outlet for his letters: www.typofonderie.com | 1996 Designed new typefaces for the public transport in Paris (RATP) | Works for customersincluding Peugeot, Costa Crocerie, France Télécom, Baltimore Sun, Beyoncé Knowles and Renault

More than typefaces
Jean François Porchez is the President of the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI). He teaches type design at the MA typefaces design at the Reading University (United Kingdom) as visiting lecturer and conducts regularly type design workshops all over the world. He alsocontributes regularly to conferences and international publications. He published Lettres Françaises, a book (in French & English) that shows all contemporary French, digital typefaces. Together with a number of colleagues, he launched a website on French typography: www.typographe.com (2003). In late 2001 he was the President of a jury set up by the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale to selectthe new handwriting model and system for France and was a jury member of the 3rd Linotype Type design Contest.

Prizes
1990 Morisawa Award for Angie | 1993 Morisawa Award for Apolline | 1998 Prix Charles Peignot | 2000 Certificate of Excellence in Type Design at TDC2, Type Directors Club’s Type Design Competition | 2001 Bukva:raz! international competition

Typefaces
Alpha Poste | Ambroise |Ambroise François | Ambroise Firmin | Angie | Angie Sans | Anisette | Anisette Petite | Apolline | Bienvenue | Charente | Costa | Costa PTF (open type) | Dereon | Le Monde | Le Monde Courrier | Le Monde Journal | Le Monde Journal Ipa | Le Monde Livre | Le Monde Livre classic | Le Monde Sans | Lion | Marianne | Mencken | Parisine | Parisine Office | Parisine Plus | Renault Identité | Sabon Next |Sitaline

Anisette
Anisette was created in reference to the work of Cassandre and the Art Décoratif period. During the thirties, encouraged by Maximilien Vox, Deberny & Peignot created the Banjo initials in one weight. Anisette is an all caps face with narrow caps placed in lowercase positions and large caps placed in uppercase positions. Arranged in six weights with ligatures.
Anisette PetiteIn answer to a number of requests, lowercase characers have now been added to the Anisette display series, which was created in 1996. The lowercase characers are based on capitals of an intermediate width, between the two original widths, to provide a wider diversity of use. The Anisette Petite lowercase shares the sobriety of geometrical typefaces and the dynamics of the tension in the curves....