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

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

, studied law at the

University of Aix-en-Provence Aix-Marseille University (AMU; french: Aix-Marseille Université; formally incorporated as ''Université d'Aix-Marseille'') is a public research university located in the Provence region of southern France. It was founded in 1409 when Louis II o ...

, 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 The Fonderie Olive, in English, Olive Foundry, was a small but high-profile type foundry located in Marseille, France. It is best known for the work of the typeface designer Roger Excoffon. In 1978 the foundry was acquired by the Mergenthaler Lino ...

. Later, he co-founded the prestigious Studio U+O, named in reference to "

Urbi et Orbi ''Urbi et Orbi'' ('to the city f Romeand to the world') denotes a papal address and apostolic blessing given by the pope on certain solemn occasions. Etymology The term ''Urbi et Orbi'' evolved from the consciousness of the ancient Roman Empir ...

Excoffon's best-known faces are

Mistral Mistral may refer to: * Mistral (wind) in southern France and Sardinia Automobiles * Maserati Mistral, a Maserati grand tourer produced from 1963 until 1970 * Nissan Mistral, or Terrano II, a Nissan 4×4 produced from 1993 until 2006 * Microp ...

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 a ...

, the latter which he designed between 1962 and 1966.

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...

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

wordmark __notoc__ A wordmark, word mark, or logotype, is usually a distinct text-only typographic treatment of the name of a company, institution, or product name used for purposes of identification and branding. Examples can be found in the graphic iden ...

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 will often have 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 seri ...

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 Remiremon ...

Georges Elgozy Georges Elgozy (14 April 1909 – . – 13 July 1989) was Inspector General of the National Economy and President of the European Committee for Economic and Cultural Cooperation. Throughout his career he published works combining minds and observa ...

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 Mo ...

, and André Parinaud.

Typefaces

These

typefaces A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...

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:Roger-Excoffon-banco.jpg, Banco File:Roger-Excoffon-calypso.jpg, Calypso File:Roger-Excoffon-choc.jpg, Choc File:Roger-Excoffon-diane.jpg, Diane File:Roger-Excoffon-mistral.jpg, 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