Roger Excoffon (7 September 1910 – 30 May 1983) was a French typeface designer and graphic designer. Excoffon was born in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

, studied law at the

University of Aix-en-Provence Aix-Marseille University (AMU; ; formally incorporated as ) is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II of Anjou, Count of Provence, petitioned the Pisan Antipope Alexan ...

, and then moved to Paris to apprentice in a print shop. In 1947, he formed his own advertising agency and concurrently became design director of a small foundry in Marseille called Fonderie Olive. Later, he co-founded the prestigious Studio U+O, named in reference to " Urbi et Orbi". MistralSpec

Excoffon's best-known faces are Mistral and

Antique Olive Antique Olive is a humanist sans-serif typeface ("antique" being equivalent to sans-serif in French typographic conventions). Along the lines of Gill Sans, it was designed in the early 1960s by French typographer Roger Excoffon, an art director ...

, the latter which he designed between 1962 and 1966.

Air France Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...

, one of Excoffon's largest and most prestigious clients, used a customized variant of Antique Olive in its

wordmark A wordmark or word mark is a text-only statement of the name of a product, service, company, organization, or institution which is used for purposes of identification and branding. A wordmark can be an actual word (e.g., Apple), a made-up term ...

and

livery A livery is an identifying design, such as a uniform, ornament, symbol, or insignia that designates ownership or affiliation, often found on an individual or vehicle. Livery often includes elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or ...

until 2009, when a new logo was introduced. Excoffon's faces, even the sober Antique Olive, have an organic vibrancy not found in similar

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

types of the period. His typefaces gave voice to an exuberant body of contemporary French and European graphic design. He is a founding member of ''L’Académie nationale des arts de la rue'' (ANAR) created in 1975 with

Jacques Dauphin Jacques Dauphin (July 4, 1923 – April 1, 1994) was a French advertising pioneer founder and CEO of Dauphin OTA. He is best known as the father of modern billboard advertising. Early life and education After graduating with a law degree fr ...

, Maurice Cazeneuve,

Paul Delouvrier Paul Delouvrier (; 25 June 1914 – 16 January 1995) was a French administrator and economist. He was awarded the Erasmus Prize in 1985, a year when the theme for the award was Urban Development. Biography Paul Delouvrier was born in Remirem ...

, Georges Elgozy,

Abraham Moles Abraham Moles (19 August 1920 – 22 May 1992) was a pioneer in information science and communication studies in France, He was a professor at Ulm school of design and University of Strasbourg. He is known for his work on kitsch. Biography M ...

, and André Parinaud.

Typefaces

These

typefaces A typeface (or font family) is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, bold), slope (e.g., italic), width ...

were designed by Roger Excoffon:Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. ''The Encyclopedia of Type Faces.'' Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983, , p. 2408-249 File:Antique Olive.svg, Antique Olive File:BancoSpecimen.png, Banco File:Calypso font example.svg, Calypso File:Roger-Excoffon-Choc.svg, Choc File:Excoffon-diane.jpg, Diane File:MistralSpec.svg, Mistral

References

*Rault, David. ''Roger Excoffon, le gentleman de la typographie'', bilingual French-English publication, Perrousseaux Editeur, Meolans Revel, 2011, . *Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. ''Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History.'' Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. . *Macmillan, Neil. ''An A–Z of Type Designers.'' Yale University Press: 2006. . *Sandra Chamaret & Julien Gineste & Sébastien Morlighem. ''Roger Excoffon et la fonderie Olive'', bilingual French-English publication, Ypsilon Editeur, Paris, 2010, 328 p., .

External links

MyFontsRoger Excoffon's archives website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Excoffon, Roger 1910 births French typographers and type designers 1983 deaths 20th-century French inventors Businesspeople from Marseille