Jean-Francois Porchez: A daily typeface of Le Monde

Graphis, Nov/Dec 2001 by Guillaume, Bernard

Mindful of their graphic identity, most American newspapers create their own typeface to enhance print quality and legibility. In France, this attention to typesetting remained unexplored until the daily Le Monde created its own exclusive typeface.

Since Le Monde's rebirth after WWII (when Le Temps was renamed Le Monde after its suspicious Vichy alliance) the prestigious daily newspaper had been built on strong editorial content simply typeset. An editorial tradition so strong that, in fact, until 1995, Le Monde had no in-house design department. The publication director worked with a production assistant on the layouts. Although the newspaper was facing serious financial difficulties resulting from both an increase in the price of paper and a diminishing readership, the editorial director was considering redesigning the layout, using in-house production skills. That very same summer, typographer Jean-Francois Porchez sent a letter to Jean-Marie Colombani, the editor-in-chief Perfect timing. It was indeed the right moment for Le Monde to have a custom-made font. Weary of a typeface too closely associated with cultural cliches-such as Times New Roman, then used by the paper-the editors wanted to convey a unique mindset and establish a corporate identity reflecting their literary sensibility. They gave Porchez a chance.

The new typeface needed to satisfy two practical demands: improve legibility, while keeping page length to a minimum by means of a narrow body of text. Up until that time, the font adopted by Le Monde had not kept up with the technical innovations of Times Europa or Times Millennium. The newspaper was still using the Stanley Morrison version conceived for traditional printing whose pronounced contrast between stems and strokes was unsuitable for modem photo-composition. The scintillation of the letters also made reading laborious.

Over the course of six months and in difficult working conditions, the progressive and non-reversible installation of new typefaces into the print-press system required that each style be designed without the benefit of a final overview. Porchez's new layout was finally released on January 9, 1995, with a complete ten-style typeface. Porchez has since redesigned the newspaper's logotype and designed a headline typeface for Le Monde supplements. He has also extended this typeface line to magazines such as The Harvard Business Review.

Most of all, Porchez's project set a personal and stimulating vision of typography. In the context of our western culture, where one reads horizontally from left to right across the page, it seems that a successful typeface is one that emulates handwriting. As a matter of fact, handwritten forms tend to be more legible than geometrical types which suffer from depreciated visual impact when set in smaller size. It is commonly acknowledged that this horizontality is conveyed by serifs and that during the reading process the retina is fixed on the top third of the lowercase letter. However, Porchez thinks the horizontal drive which makes letters readable is mainly conveyed by how the letter mass is distributed along a medium axis as well as the tension resulting from in-line disposition of letters.

For vertical axis cases, the counter punch is identical to the form and accentuates the vertical aspect of the sign. On the other hand, inclined axis cases have more pronounced counters than the letter outline itself The horizontal drive given by this inclined axis and the inner letter contrast between counter and form actually helps letter recognition. "The white of the paper makes the black of the character readable," concludes Porchez.

In addition, according to Porchez, "Each case being an isolated unit, and no echo being perceptible between them," it creates a tension, a tight rhythm that helps case recognition over the course of reading. Most importantly, because the occurrence of letters varies in languages, the tension differs in Latin and Germanic languages and has to be taken into account in the readability of type.

For instance, in the German text, geometric and vertical-axis types tend to ease the reading, as words tend to be longer with a lot of letters with ascenders and descenders such as [1], [g], [k]. However their use might not be perfectly adapted to French wherein letters such as [in], [n], [o] are more frequent. Porchez has therefore subtly modified each character for Le Monde to ensure that each form is suitable to its respective language.

"Letter proportion had to be redistributed along an inclined axis, the face enlarged, the open form of typeface highlighted, the vertical elements trimmed to emphasize horizontal balance, and the serifs uncluttered," says Porchez. His typeface has proven to be an elegant solution for a French daily newspaper, which puts an emphasis on text rather than images in its layout and is willing to distinguish itself from the international press industry.

After being trained at the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (ANRT), Jean-FranCois Porchez (born 1964) worked as a typeface designer for several international design agencies. Landor Associates recently hired him as a freelance to create a typeface for the new France Telecom corporate identity. Porchez gives conferences on type design and is Vice President of the A TYPI (Association Typographique Internationale) as well as a member of the Typographic Circle (London). His work was awarded several international distinctions such as the Certificate of Type Design Excellence (Type Directors Club of New- York, 2000) for the Costa corporate typeface, and the Charles Peignot Award in 1998 as a recognition of his work to date. He teaches at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and distributes his own typefaces through Porchez Typofonderie (www.porcheztypo.com).