Parisine is a

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, 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, ...

that was created by Jean-François Porchez and is distributed by Typofonderie. The typeface is used in

Paris Métro The Paris Métro (, , or , ), short for Métropolitain (), is a rapid transit system serving the Paris metropolitan area in France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architectur ...

, tramways and

buses A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

and the parts of RER parts that are operated by the

RATP Group The RATP Group () is a French state-owned enterprise (Établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial, EPIC) that operates public transport systems primarily in Paris, France. Headquartered in Paris, it originally operated under th ...

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...

. In 2015, the Osaka City Subway in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

adopted Parisine as the Latin-character component of its new signage system, which is gradually being introduced throughout its network.

Parisine

The font was originally developed in 1996 as a custom typeface in Bold and Bold Italic developed for the RATP to improve signage legibility and space economy. The design was based on the proportions of

Helvetica Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the f ...

Bold but is condensed at 90%. In 1999, the font was extended to a font family for multiple uses like communication material and maps. In 2000, hinted

TrueType TrueType is an Computer font#Outline fonts, outline font standardization, standard developed by Apple Inc., Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe Inc., Adobe's PostScript fonts#Type 1, Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the ...

versions were added for internal corporate use. The name Parisine is a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

of the RATP.

Parisine Std

Parisine Std is an

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...

variant of Parisine. A

small caps In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are grapheme, characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. Small caps are used i ...

version was produced called Parisine SC, see Parisine PRO for Small Caps. OpenType features include

ligature Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

s, fractions, ordinals/superior letters and figures, caps figures, oldstyle figures (SC versions only) and a tabular figures.

Parisine PRO

It is an OpenType variant of Parisine, which further expanded upon Parisine Std. A previous version of Parisine PRO was called Parisine PTF. Each member of the family is composed of more than 720

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

s and feature around 26700

kerning In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between Character (symbol), characters in a Typeface#Proportion, proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual le ...

pairs. OpenType features include small caps, case forms, ligatures, special ligatures, alternates, stylistic sets, caps figures, oldstyle figures, tabular figures, fractions, superscript/subscript, superior/inferior figures, ordinals/superior letters and figures, and ornaments.

Parisine Plus

Parisine Plus is a variant with alternative designs. It includes extra ligatures over the respective classic designs.

Parisine Plus Std

Some additional alternates glyphs are included in

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

Type 1 format. OpenType features include ligatures, fractions, ordinals/superior letters and figures, caps figures, oldstyle figures (SC versions only) and tabular figures.

Parisine Plus PRO

It is an expanded OpenType variant of Parisine Plus Std that was released at the same time as Parisine. A previous version of Parisine Plus PRO was called Parisine Plus PTF. Each member of the family is composed of more than 900 glyphs and features around 40000 kerning pairs. OpenType features include small caps, case forms, ligatures, special ligatures, alternates, stylistic sets, swashes, caps figures, oldstyle figures, tabular figures, fractions, superscript/subscript, superior/inferior figures, ordinals/superior letters and figures and ornaments.

Parisine Office

''Parisine Office'' was a version created for RATP in 2005, as replacement of

Gill Sans Gill Sans is a Sans-serif#Humanist, humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype Imaging, Monotype in 1928. It is based on Edward Johnston's 1916 "Johnston (typeface), Underground Alphabet", t ...

. It became the first variant designed in OpenType. The font was commercially available in June 2008. It consists of over 600 characters, and is metric-compatible with Gill Sans. The family includes font weights with complementary italics. OpenType features include case forms, ligatures, special ligatures, alternates, swashes, caps figures, oldstyle figures, semi oldstyle figures, tabular figures, fractions, superscript/subscript, superior/inferior figures, ordinals/superior letters and figures, and ornaments.

Parisine Office PRO

It is an extension of the original Parisine Office font, featuring smaller x-height, more cursive italic lowercase glyphs than in Parisine, a bit like Parisine Plus, extended character sets. Previous version of Parisine Office PRO was called Parisine Office PTF. OpenType features include small caps, case forms, ligatures, special ligatures, alternates, stylistic sets, caps figures, oldstyle figures, tabular figures, fractions, superscript/subscript, superior/inferior figures, ordinals/superior letters and figures, and ornaments.

Parisine Girouette (2012)

Parisine Girouette is a custom version of Parisine designed by Jean-François Porchez under the ZeCraft foundry, for use with LED displays on RATP buses. Parisine Girouette Frontale is used for the main direction on the front of bus and was designed to be quite narrow to Allô the display if a maximum of content. Parisine Girouette Latérale is also designed at 50% of the size of the main typeface to set information on the side of the bus. The Bold font is used for the final direction, and the Regular/Light is used for intermediate stops.

Family naming convention

With exception of Parisine SC, Parisine Office and Parisine Girouette, each family contains 6 weights with complementary italics but is further divided into 3 subfamily, where the subfamily with Clair suffix includes 2 lightest weights, Sombre suffix includes 2 heaviest weights, and thé subfamily without suffix includes 2 middle weights. Fonts in each subfamily are always named Regular, Italic, Bold or Bold Italic, regardless of actual font weights across the family. In 2010, the Gris subfamily was added to Parisine PRO family, which includes 2 intermediate font weights between Parisine PRO Clair and Parisine PRO. In 2013, the Gris subfamily was added to Parisine Plus families, which includes 2 intermediate font weights between Parisine Plus Clair and Parisine Plus. However, Parisine Plus Gris Regular is weighted between Parisine Plus Clair Bold and Parisine Plus Regular, and Parisine Plus Gris Bold is weighted between Parisine Plus Regular and Parisine Plus Bold.

Awards

Parisine Office won a Star of the Observeur 07 at the Design Observeur 07 (Observeur du design 07). Parisine Girouette won a star at Observeur du design 13 under the graphic design, visual identity category. Parisine Girouette won a prize in 44e Palmarès Prix 2012 under the Typography category, typeface design category.Archives Créatives , Le Club des DA
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References

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External links

Typofonderie: ParisineTypofonderie: Parisine PlusTypofonderie: Parisine Office
*ZeCraft pages
ParisineParisine GirouetteMétro Type
history behind the font
Le Parisine, une typo parisienne
covers history of Parisine Corporate typefaces Government typefaces Humanist sans-serif typefaces Paris Métro Réseau Express Régional RATP Group Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1996