Only three styles where drawn in the following attempt, the others are either interpolated or extrapolated. There are two regular styles of different contrast and a heavy one with moderate contrast. The initial style — also the first in this list — is based on a face cut by Firmin Didot in 1796 and first used that same year for an edition of De la Rochefoucault’s Maximes et réflexions morales [1].

[1] Sébastien Morlighem, The ‘modern face’ in France and Great Britain, 1781–1825: typography as an ideal of progress, 2014

Photo: Album cover, Vanguard Visionnaries: Skip James

It’s quite a grey day, and when colours are missing, I’d rather be next to an ocean, but I’m not even close yet.

Thus, on this dull evening, I looked for solace in the company of one of the most legendary lighthouses of the french atlantic coast, Ar’men, which in the breton tongue means, the rock. It is amongst the rare offshore lighthouses and one of those  keepers referred to as ‘Hell’. There were also ‘Purgatories’ and ‘Paradises’, obviously. And about this particular lighthouse, I found this video of 1962, shortly describing the life in this inhabited beacon which is meant to keep ships from wrecking on the shallows westward from the Isle of Sein.

I’m posting it because I enjoyed as much the topic than the graphics starting and ending the subject. They display typefaces by Roger Excoffon, namely Antique Olive Nord for the titles, and Chambord for the ending credits.

Ça se passe par là.