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A birthday present for Godard

Graphic Design, Type / Typography

Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 3 December 2010, 10:06    Permalink    Comments (13)

Today is Jean-Luc Godard's 80th birthday. To honour their hero, design studio Atelier Carvalho Bernau has created the Jean-Luc typeface which is available for free from their website

"Our favourite director, Jean-Luc Godard, turns 80 today, and we want to celebrate (with) him, with everyone," say the studio's Susana Carvalho and Kai Bernau. "We were always in love with the title sequence lettering to Godard's movies Made in USA [see below] and 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle. So as an hommage to Jean-Luc, to the Nouvelle Vague, to Seberg, Karina, Faithfull & Cie., we present you our Jean-Luc typeface, as a birthday gift for everyone. Voilá!"

The typeface is based on the lettering used in the title sequences for the films. "We didn't find out who originally made the lettering for these two movies," they say. "Some speculate it could have been Godard himself – Godard's interest in graphic design and typography is clear, with many of his other films employing such strong typography-only titles and intertitles."

"This style of lettering is so interesting to us because it is such a clear renunciation of the 'pretty', classical title screens that were common in that time's more conservative films. It has a more vernacular and brutishly low-brow character."



"We cannot prove this, but we think it may be derived from the stencil letters of the Plaque Découpée Universelle, a lettering device invented in the 1870s by a certain Joseph A David, and first seen in France at the 1878 Exposition Universelle, where it found broad appeal and rapid adoption [see above, the Jean-Luc font is in white, PDU in blue]. We think this style of lettering was absorbed into the public domain vernacular of French lettering, and that the 2 ou 3 choses titles are derived from this style, as it would seem to fit Godard's obsession with vernacular typography."

You can download the font here

13 Comments

Bravo!
Simon
2010-12-03 10:46:51

What a lovely touch. Makes you want to watch the movies again. Or better still, hit Paris looking for trouble or adventure. . .
Johnny Cullen
2010-12-03 12:29:28

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her is one of my favourite films. Now I can typeset all the slogans that occur to me while staring into the cosmos of my swirling black coffee... "In my dreams I used to feel that I was being sucked into a huge hole. Now I feel I'm beng scattered in a thousand pieces. Before, even if it was a slow process, I would wake up all at once. Now I'm afraid there'll be pieces missing."

Thanks Susana and Kai. Happy birthday JLG!
Simon Palmer
2010-12-03 13:42:50

BONNE ANIVERSAIRE MR. GODARD!
PiM
2010-12-03 14:58:52

Thanks a lot! It`s the best birthday gift.
Vlaura
2010-12-03 15:02:18

The font he used was Antique Olive with the i's dotted

There's a breakdown of it here:
http://blogs.walkerart.org/design/2009/11/10/godards-intertitles2/
shirley
2010-12-03 17:24:29

great present and great work ;)
laura meseguer
2010-12-03 18:18:32

Shirley, yes Godard used something that look like AO for a bunch of movies, such as Pierrot le Fou. One of the authors of the recent Excoffon and Olive book actually thinks it may not be; for A bout de souffle (Breathless) he used lettering based on Vendome (also from the Olive foundry). The walkerart post is not terribly precise — Masculin féminin uses not "something like Futura" but much rather "something like Neuzeit Grotesk", at least according to Spiekermann. The letters for the movies mentioned here, however, are very clearly neither AO, nor Futura, mor NG.

— HvdS
Haarm van der Sluis
2010-12-03 18:37:50

c'est fantastique comme cadeau! Merci, Maitre godard! Je suis ravie . Agnes Haesendonck Louvain Belgique
agnes Haesendonck
2010-12-05 23:08:47

Antique Olive? I don't think so.
Brian
2010-12-06 08:56:03

Great typo gift for every fan of the magical mystery cinetype from Rolle. JLG Forever!
Alex Stockman
2010-12-06 18:42:36

Cool, now i have 1billion and 1 fonts lol
Graphic Design Manchester
2010-12-07 12:16:17

A wonderful birthday gift idea.
À bout de souffle is a wonderful film. Merci Monsieur Godard.
Sabina
2011-03-14 14:52:53

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