Bretagne

01.

Chantier,
regular, italic, bold & constructed

The Chantier type family is a blend between Nebiolo type foundry’s Egizio, of which I was able to consult a specimen in the Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek archives, and typefaces from posters specimens recollected in the Brittany’s Museum printed objects collections. It is made of four styles, including an opened variation called “Constructed”. The latter questions the shape to be given to a font “under construction”, and how to display through a letter shape the steps of a typeface’s making. Chantier was developed by Fátima Lázaro.
02.

Self Modern,
regular, italic, book, semi bold & bold

The starting point of Self Modern were specimens of traditional serif Japanese typefaces, called "Mincho", found in magazines & books that I brought back from Japan in 2015. I added to these references my researches on automatic composition systems, the “Self Spacing Types” in particular. The typeface is also designed to work with Japanese characters at the same size and weight. The Book, Semi-Bold and Bold versions, drawn in collaboration with Roxane Gataud, were added in 2021.
03.

Kernevel,
regular, italic, book, book italic, bold, bold italic, black & black italic

I remember summers in Brittany. I was fascinated by sailing ships: large ones, small ones, monohulls, multihulls. I spent my time on the pontoons to see them in real life, and in magazines to compare them on paper. This interest was maintained by my grandfather who took us sailing, on his 36-footer with two spreaders, between Groix, Belle-Île and Houat. The departure was invariably from the port of Kernevel. Kernevel stands somewhere between Brittany and California. Interpretation of Frederic William Goudy’s University of California Old Style, it is a classic-looking typeface gazing towards a more distant horizon. Typeface developed by Roxane Gataud. Kernevel is available for purchase at Formagari.
04.

Cucina,
neretta, corsiva & nera

Cucina was initiated after the discovery of the Italian artist Tomaso Binga. Especially her work "Alfabetiere Pop", made around 1976. The typeface combines the rigid and industrial structure of Clarendon with the controlled speed of a script font. Like two antagonists who would have been forced to work together, they end up making an interesting team. A bold version was added later. The 2020 update of Cucina Corsiva was drawn in collaboration with Roxane Gataud.
05.

Happy Times at the IKOB New Game Plus Edition, regular, italic & bold

In December 2016, german graphic designer Matthias Hübner pitched for the new visual identity of the IKOB, a museum of contemporary art located in Eupen, Belgium. Part of the pitch was the commissioning of a custom typeface, which was planned to be released as an open source license, once it was finished and in use. I was asked to design this typeface as a contemporary rendition of the Times New Roman in two cuts: Regular and Italic. Since the typeface couldn’t be ready for the relaunch of the new design, Matthias decided to do a typographical restart: all communications (Posters, Flyers, Letters) were set in Times New Roman, and this typeface would be replaced gradually with new sets of characters as they were produced. At the end of 2017, the whole set was finally developed and in use ever since. In 2019, an update was realesed under the name "New Game Plus" with a refined kerning and a bold version. Happy TImes is free and open source, you can download it on Velvetyne.

Throw a small rock in the sea. Ripples appear at the surface, shaped by the seabed as they spread. Bretagne is a matter of surface and deepness, a matter of traces left by primitive forces: wrinkles carved in man’s foreheads by old legends, furrows digging the dune under the west wind and the great swell rising up on the shallows.

Website compiled in February 2020 by Hugo Piquemal. All fonts Copyright 2024 Lucas Le Bihan.