Visual identity of Musiques de Rues, a festival of contemporary brass bands and artistic interventions in public space. It mixes zebras, fluorescent inks and Garaje.

Garaje takes its inspiration both from the alphabets of the Bauhaus school and the vernacular inscriptions of Spanish garage owners: two worlds that share a desire to reduce typographic forms to simple geometric elements. At the Bauhaus this geometrization is ideological: it represents a rejection of tradition and the affirmation of an objective and rational vocabulary. With garage owners it is a simple matter of logic, certainly due to an ignorance of tradition. It is somewhat naïve to wish to reduce the shapes of the alphabet to elementary forms. Perfect geometrical forms seem less than perfect to our eyes: type Design abounds with optical corrections that compensate for our perception of forms.
Garaje plays specifically with this paradox: its construction is rigorously geometrical, anchored to a scalable modular grid, with no optical correction. A perfectly objective system, but a typographical aberration, simultaneously right and wrong. For the last 20 years, I have extended this family in every direction, to the point of absurdity: extremely narrow or outlandishly wide letterforms, all built from the same modules. Today it is a complete system, available in 44 widths and 5 weights. The complete family counts 445 fonts, hundreds of thousands of glyphs, and zero contrast: Garaje is a typeface which is at the same time brutal and playful, rational and naïve. Garaje Wide subfamily goes from 0505 (5 on 5 grid) to 05015 (5 on 15 grid) and includes 55 fonts + 1 variable font. Its construction allows to compose in many widths without changing the stem weight.
Available at 205TF.
Online specimen

Sign for the new building of the Centre (architect : Philippe Donzé, Besançon). Some letters are replaced by real road signs, which reflect the light of car headlights. Photos © Nicolas Waltefaugle

Annual programme for the season 2016-2017 of Les 2 Scènes. 80 p.

The visual identity of the Théâtre musical was based on an eye. In June 2012, the Scène nationale de Besançon joined two theatres, the Théâtre musical (Théâtre Ledoux, which interiors are all blue) and the Théâtre de l’Espace (all red), in one single institution. To communicate on this major change, I proposed to design a new identity in two spot colors, blue and red, and use anaglyphic glasses two see what’s happening in one place or the other: it was time to use both eyes. Text appears or disappears in the blink of an eye ! In the Pre-programme for the season 2012-2013, Nicolas Waltefaugle did a photo shoot in the stage decor workshop with the whole new team. Photographs are superposed too, to create mini-animations. 40,000 anaglyphic glasses were distributed with the booklets, and we even designed some fancy pairs with Adélaïde Racca. 32 pages

Programme of the 1st edition of the festival Mégaphone, organised by Why Note and Zutique associations in Dijon. A small format, printed in black on a gloss coated paper. Typeset in a custom weight of Garaje, Ultra Black.

Besançon school of fine arts is based on a modernist building by Josep Luis Sert (1972). With Rainer Oldendorf and students, we defined a signage system composed in Garaje 0503 Monospace Black, used for the logotype I designed at the time. Letters were reproduced in 2 sizes, A4 and A6. Rainer Oldendorf and Gilles Picouet engraved litterally the concrete wall of the main entrance, to inscribe physically this 750-units grid on the building. The paper letters were directly stuck on the wall, to announce the events of the school, forming a continuous palimpsest.