After training as a graphic designer, during which he focused on type design, Jean François Porchez (born 1964) worked as a type director at Dragon Rouge. By 1994, he had created the new typeface for Le Monde newspapers. Today he designs custom typefaces for the Baltimore Sun, Beyoncé Knowles, Costa Crocieres, France Télécom, Louis Vuitton, Peugeot, RATP (Public Transport in Paris), as well as distributing internationally his retail typefaces via his typofonderie.com website. For the
Linotype Library Platinum collection, he has created a revival of the Sabon, a
Jan Tschichold revival of Garamond in 2002.
He is hononary President of the
Association Typographique Internationale (was ATypI President in 2004–2007). He taught type design at the MA typefaces design at the
Reading University (United Kingdom) and at Ensad and conduct regularly type design workshops all over the world. He also contributes regularly to conferences and international publications. He published Lettres Françaises, a book (in French & English) that shows all contemporary French, digital typefaces. In late 2001 he was the President of a jury set up by the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale to select the new handwriting model and system for France and was a jury member of the 3rd Linotype Type design Contest.
He was awarded the Prix Charles Peignot in 1998.
FF Angie (1990) &
Apolline (1993) were prize-winning entries in the Morisawa typeface competition.
Costa received a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design at the TDC2 2000.
Ambroise,
Anisette,
Anisette Petite, Charente,
Le Monde Journal, &
Le Monde Courrier were all prize-winning entries in the Bukva:raz international competition (2001). Deréon and Mencken won a Creative Review Type Awards (2006). Parisine Office won a star at the
Observeur du design 07.
Jean François Porchez offers his fonts through his
Typofonderie foundry at MyFonts.
