{"id":33258,"date":"2013-05-03T03:39:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T01:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grapheine.com\/graphic-design-en\/roger-excoffon"},"modified":"2019-05-20T17:58:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T15:58:40","slug":"roger-excoffon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grapheine.com\/en\/history-of-graphic-design\/roger-excoffon","title":{"rendered":"Roger Excoffon, a master of French graphic design"},"content":{"rendered":"

We continue to explore the series of great names in graphic design<\/a> with Roger Excoffon.<\/p>\n

\"excoffon-portrait-rencontre-lure\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A famous stranger<\/h2>\n

Roger Excoffon (1910-1983) is one of the most influential figures in French graphic design and typography. And yet if his name remains little known to the general public, his work is certainly known to the greatest number. A talented graphic designer and advertiser, he has produced hundreds of posters and logos. But it was as a typographer that he marked the French graphic landscape with only 7 typographies to his credit: Vend\u00f4me, Banco, Mistral, Choc, Diane, Calypso and Antique Olive. One can especially remember the innumerable signs of bar-tabac, hair salons and other bakery which used ( and abused?) these last ones.<\/p>\n

Who is Roger Excoffon?<\/h2>\n

His career as a character designer is atypical. Indeed, he served only 14 years in this trade, from 1945 to 1959. Before this period, he wanted to become a painter. In 1930, he missed his entrance exam to the Beaux-Arts and Arts D\u00e9co. He then does many odd jobs to feed his family, but spends his free time drawing.<\/p>\n

\"At thirty, I was a failure, a dry fruit, I had done nothing. I spent my time observing, drawing, painting...\"<\/em><\/p>\n

The war caught up with him and he was mobilized in the south of France. And it is by drawing the portrait of each member of his battalion that he will be spotted by the staff. He will be entrusted with the task of drawing the graphs of adjustment of the barrels of his company. He will thus be initiated to logarithmic calculations, which is a bit the ancestor of the b\u00e9zier curve. From this experience he will retain the sense of responsibility, it was suddenly those individuals who directly or indirectly could find themselves responsible for the death of another.<\/p>\n

His first steps...<\/h2>\n

After the war, he found a job as a cartoonist in Robert Alexandre's advertising agency. The experience was short since one year after the economic crisis forced his employer to fire him. It is there that Marcel Olive (his brother-in-law) crosses the road and proposes to him to take the direction of the Parisian agency of his typographic foundry.<\/p>\n

It was to counter the success of the competing foundry Derby & Peignot. Excoffon is therefore working on the development of the \"Chambord\" character.<\/p>\n

\"chambord-excoffon-typographie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"At the time, I had to admit that I knew nothing rigorously about typography. I was young; I wanted to do something different, and I did with this character, the Chambord, of the sub-Peignot \".<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Banco!<\/h2>\n

Its second character, the Banco, is the result of industrial espionage! At that time, he learns through an article in a professional magazine that the Derby & Peignot Foundry is working on a new character, he then takes his magnifying glass and carefully scrutinizes the photo illustrating the article, where we see the character designer Marcel Jacno working ( ps: We will try to come back on his work, it is he who drew among other things the famous package of cigarettes \"Gauloises\"). Despite the mediocre quality of photography, Roger Excoffon nevertheless has a sufficiently precise idea of the work in progress, and submits to his boss some pencils inspired by what he has seen. \"Banco\" says the latter! 2 months later, the character comes out and makes a hit!<\/p>\n

\"banco-typographie-excoffon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This character is then very innovative, it seems drawn with a brush by an energetic hand. Very quickly all the French delicatessens, grocery stores, and bakeries will seize this character, for the joy and the misfortune of its creator. Like all fashions, this character will fall into disuse from the 70s and 80s... even becoming synonymous with old-fashioned. Fortunately, in recent years, this character has regained its letters of nobility and is of increasing interest to younger generations. A blog is even dedicated to him: ilovebanco.blogspot.fr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, he will participate in the drawing of the Vend\u00f4me (designed by Fran\u00e7ois Ganeau). It's an elegant serif alphabet designed to compete with the Garamond.<\/p>\n

\"typographie-vendome-excoffon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The nose in the wind<\/h2>\n

Starting in 1952, Excoffon began drawing a script character: the Mistral.
\nHe began by gathering all the documentation on the handwritings of great men, before realizing that his own writing was his best foundation. He then works to thwart the problems inherent in typographic composition techniques: \"how to normalize manual letters while preserving their life, their imbalance, with for example letter attachments of different heights? \"<\/em>
\n\"le-mistral-excoffon\"<\/a>
\n\"excoffon-mistral-font\"<\/a>
\nOnce again this character will be a great success, and if the Banco seemed drawn with a brush, the Mistral seems to be drawn with a ballpoint pen. Butcher shops, bakeries and other shopfronts will soon use and abuse the Mistral. The top of the roof being this sign in Colorado of a shop named \"Mistral\" and... guess what... it is composed in Mistral!<\/p>\n

\"mistral-logo-mistral-font\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After some research, it seems the case is not rare!<\/p>\n

\"Mistralrestaurant\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, many sites are having a good time listing shopfronts using the Mistral, for example\u00a0here<\/a> or\u00a0here<\/a> (an article published in 2004 by Matt Soar, professor at Concordia University in Montreal is also available\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Drive-A4-Poster_mistral-font\"<\/a>Once again, fashion will pass, and this typography will long be synonymous with bad taste. Fortunately, his very expressive drawing finds thanks to the current graphic designers. It can thus be found regularly on posters; for example on the poster of the film \"Drive\".<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The weight of words, the clash of typos!<\/h2>\n

\"le-choc-typography-excoffon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Excoffon-Choc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Would you like to dance Calyso?<\/h2>\n

alypso was born by chance,\" says Excoffon, \"I had fun drawing a character, a letter on a roll of paper, when Marcel Olive arrives and says to me, \"What is this? I answer him with a laugh: \"It's the layer of a new character\", and he answers me: \"I'll take it\".<\/em><\/p>\n

Behind this anecdote hides a real technical challenge for the time. Indeed, the progress of the photocomposition allows the use of characters that the traditional printing could not have reproduced, remains that it is necessary to draw with the hand all the characters ( and thus thousands of small points conscientiously aligned following curves carefully studied! No computers back then! ).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Excoffon_calypso\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Diana, goddess of English women<\/h2>\n

After using the brush, the ballpoint pen, Excoffon takes his most beautiful nib to draw the Diana, an English girl with multiple curls. Once again, it is a technical challenge that he must face. Indeed, the fineness of English characters is not really suitable for lead characters, these characters are fragile and often break...
\n\"diane-script\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2008, Mark Simonson began to redesign the original version of Diane<\/a>, with all the possibilities offered by digital.<\/p>\n

Heading North<\/h2>\n

The years 1957-58 saw the emergence of a fashion for linear typography, which is called the Swiss style. Helvetica or Adrian Frutiger's Universe became the standards of the time. The Olive foundry must react. Excoffon will do it brilliantly by designing the North, which will then be declined in eleven grease variants. The whole family will be called Antique Olive. The North being the name of the \"black\" version of Antique Olive.<\/p>\n

\"le_nord_typo_excoffon\"<\/a>
\nAt the time, Roger Excoffon was interested in Louis-\u00c9mile Javal's book Physiologie de la lecture et de l'\u00e9criture. In this study, it is stated for the first time that it is the upper part of the letter that is most important for readability. His work on the North and Antique Olive will be deeply marked by this study.<\/p>\n

\"antique-olive\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what Roger Excoffon says about this work. This text is from the magazine \"Caract\u00e8re de No\u00ebl 1960\".<\/p>\n

The convention of the letter, from the moment it was born in a few abstract signs corresponding to sounds, has already largely evolved. All influences have thus manifested themselves successively, often due to techniques (such as wheelbases, for example) but also largely to aesthetic wills, themselves influenced by technique.
\nSo far all the \"a's\" of the world and times have been established according to a decorative notion. They were all also intended for a page of a certain \"color\", strictly decorative design. Thus, here and there, we have been able to insist on the relationship between this decorative art and architecture. One could write quite logically: such and such a character is in the aesthetics of such and such an era, a point of view that seems to me totally independent of the one that can be applied to a typographic character.<\/p>\n

In recent years it has become a commonplace to talk about global reading and the silhouette of the word. To construct this word, I cut it into letters. The immediate goal is to eliminate any ambiguity in reading between the letters of the same word. I will take as typical example of error in the drawing of the letter the \"e\" and the \"c\" Didot or Bodoni low case. These two letters are differentiated by the middle bar of the \"e\". However, the latter is reduced to its minimum in the case of didones, whereas it is in this middle horizontal that the dominant characteristic of the \"e\" lies.<\/p>\n

But let's talk about the ancient. Our starting point is obviously the antique single fat. The goal: to make it live and, starting from it, to afford a valid game of fats. I used these greases for aesthetic and legibility purposes. Any aesthetic notion coming from the human body, the play of the feather manifested itself before the play of the physical and the aesthetic pleasure.<\/p>\n

Until now, fat has never been used to mean. I used this displaced fat to emphasize the significant point of the letter, even though I did not use it in the traditional place, taking into account that this tradition of nuances is not very sensitive to the profane. I therefore relied on reading, this for a functional and effective purpose.<\/p>\n

Each letter being thus characterized, the word constructed takes then a more significant architecture. Whenever possible, when a fat was asserted from above, I accentuated it by about 1\/10th. When this fattening appeared at the bottom of the letter, I tended to decrease it by 1\/10th because of reading from above.<\/p>\n

From the moment a character is born in your hands, it normally begins to escape. I tried, after having redrawn my letters many times, to bring them to tolerable for the accustomed eye, at the same time as I affirmed my thesis on the functional reading of the letter.
\nTo spare the eye's habits, I minimized the effects opposed to tradition, bringing them back to the limit of what I thought allowed by the eye's habit. Nothing proves, if typographic fashion plays normally, that I would not have drawn, on this occasion, a very timid ancestor.<\/p>\n

Excoffon the publicist<\/h2>\n

It is from 1959, date on which he stops drawing character, that he devotes all his time to his advertising agency which he founded a few years before. He signed numerous advertising campaigns for Air France, Reynolds, SNCF, Caisse d'\u00c9pargne, Larousse...<\/p>\n