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ABOUT

Nonpareille (was: Chastellun.net) [Matthieu Cortat]

Matthieu Cortat was born in Délémont (Switzerland) in 1982, and became a French citizen later. After a degree in graphic design in 2005, at the University of Art&Design Lausanne (Ecal), he obtained a Masters at the Atelier National de Recherche Typographie in Nancy (France). Cortat heads the Master Type design program at the École d'art de Lausanne (ECAL). He lives in Lyon where he is advisor to the collections of the museum of Printing and Graphic communication. He created the French typographical corpus, which brings together the typefaces in France between 1850 and today. He set up Nonpareille. Most of his typefaces can be bought at 205 Corp.

His typefaces:

• Bentham (transitional).
• Bonesana (2009, Gestalten, an elegant text family straight out of the 18th century).
• Brett (2004). A rounded pixel face.
• Chastelmail (a modification of ITC Officina).
• Goupil (2008, by Regis Tosetti).
• Ecstrat (2009, ornamental 18th century type in the style of Fournier or Rosart).
• Fairplay (transitional newspaper face).
• Glovis (2007, a monospaced typewriter typeface with ball terminals; with Régis Tosetti).
• Liberté.
• Tartan.
• Monolith.
• Stockmar (2007, Optimo: a 12-style baroque family inspired by by Johann Rudolf Genath II (1679-1740)).
• Stuart Pro and Stuart Standard (Nonpareille, 2008). These almost Venetian low-contrast text type families come in 18 styles each, and have three optical choices for the ranges below 8pt, 8-12 pt and above 12pt.
• Ecstrat.
• Glovis.
• Louize (2013). This is a contemporary revival of the Augustaux designed by Louis Perrin between 1846 and 1855. It mixes roman square capitals with a set of transitional / old style / incised lower case. In 2021, he added Louize Display Condensed. He explians: In 1846, Lyonnese printer, Louis Perrin commissioned founder Francisque Rey to cut a series of capitals inspired by monumental roman inscriptions. They have been used to compose "Les Inscriptions antiques de Lyon", a book by Alphonse de Boissieu. In 1855, the typeface was completed by a series of lowercase, some coming from the printshop of Rey, others designed by Perrin himself. His Augustaux, one of the first revivals in the history of typography, became rapidly successful, launching the Renouveau Elzévirien" movement. With the Louize Family, Matthieu Cortat provides a contemporary reinterpretation of the Augustaux. It retains a wise and serene tone, a clear grey of text, the soft roundness of the curves. Louize is discreet, calm, harmonious.
• Chrysaora (2013). An all caps art deco typeface family based on the engraved letters on the Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris.
• Ebnor (2013). A digital version of the Écriture Bâton Normalisée (standardized sans serif) presented by M. Brun in a self-published booklet of 1959. The shape of letters respects the standard E-04-105 of the French Association for Standardization (AFNOR) which sets norms for industry, engineering and architecture. All letters are monolined and warmly rounded.
• Svafa (2013). This is a rune simulation typeface that revives lettering designed by Eugène Grasset in 1893, on a poster for Richard Wagner's opera, Valkyrie.
• Petit Serif (2013): Petit Serif is a caps typeface with copperplate endings, described as an interpretation (with Latin, Greek and Cyrillic versions) based on the lettering done at 55 Broadway, S.W.1, London, by Percy J. Delf Smith. It is a sans serif presenting the classic proportions of the Roman Square Capitals, yet it does show tiny serifs due to the use of a brush.
• Mecano Sans and Mecano Serif (2013). A revival of a condensed geometric Nebiolo family.
• Henry (2013). They write: Henry is a personal reinterpretation of the Garamond cut for the Deberny & Peignot type foundry between 1914 and 1926 by Henri Parmentier, under the management of Georges Peignot, who owned the foundry. Their purpose was to recreate the gracefulness of Claude Garamont's type typeface while allowing for the development of modern paper making, with its wood pulp paper, as opposed to 16th century rag paper. This elegant and smooth text family has its own mind: Henry is based on the text sizes (9 to 14) of the Garamond Peignot. It is a light and fluid Garald, rather skinny and narrow, with a slender grace. There is an art nouveau spirit in its z leaning on the left, its serpentine a and J, the roundish lower bowl of its t, the wide tail of its Q.
• Hans (2013). A dark Koch-style textura blackletter.
• Battling (2013). This is quite an interesting sans family, in the geometric style of 1930s Europe. The original rough model was a typeface family called Universelles by the Dutreix foundry in Limoges, first produced in the 1930s. The heavier weights are characterized by small cactus spurs. Apparently, Universelles is a renamed version of Hans Moehring's Elegant Grotesk (1928-1929).
• Anacharsis (2012). An experimental geometric sans family.
• Basetica Pro (2013). Even though only offered in two styles, the announcement says that Basetica aims to be the Helvetica for 2013.
• Helvetius (2016). A reinterpretation of a Fournier-style font used in a 1178 edition of De L'Homme by French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvetius.
• Cosimo (2017, Bureau 205). A humanist sans.
• Yorick (2018). Yorick is based on a monospace typewriter font (model 3402U) found in the Campionario caratteri e fregi tipografici of the Nebiolo type foundry, dated 1920, but the font might probably be older. The source is a slab serif form very common in typewriter fonts (Pica, according to Olivetti naming system) with a little touch of classical flavour from the Imperial style (i.e. with thick and thin contrasts).
• Molitor (2019, 205TF). A great art deco-inspired sans typeface that looks great even for text on a screen.
• Muoto (2021), a variable sans serif font designed by Matthieu Cortat, Anthony Franklin and Sander Vermeulen (Base Design). They write: Muoto is the synthesis of a sensitive and human approach to modernist design. This font combines full curves and solid stems, showing that functionalism can actually be warm and softly effective. With its robust structure and subdued proportions, it evokes organic forms dear to Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, who in 1957 wrote: "We should work for simple, good, undecorated things, but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street".

Speaker at ATypI 2017 Montreal.

Klingspor link.

View Matthieu Cortat's typefaces. View Nonpareille's font library.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type design in Switzerland ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Typewriter fonts ⦿ Blackletter fonts ⦿ Pixel/bitmap fonts ⦿ Type design in France ⦿ Textura ⦿ Rune simulation fonts ⦿ Architectural lettering/typefaces ⦿ Garalde or Garamond typefaces ⦿ Venetian or antiqua typefaces ⦿ Monospaced fonts ⦿ Fournier ⦿ Variable fonts ⦿