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.
Published by 205TF

Annual programme for the season 2012-2013 of the Scène nationale de Besançon. An image never appears alone: two are superimposed, one in blue, the other in red, which creates surprising encounters. Despite the huge diversity of the iconography, often provided by the companies, this radical treatment gives a global consistency to the series. The programme is distributed with a pair of anaglyphic glasses, to animate texts and pictures in a glimpse of an eye. 132 p.

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

Pre-programme of the 3rd edition of Musiques de Rues, a festival of contemporary brass bands and artistic interventions in public space.

Identity and flyer for the exhibition of the Type Directors Club at ECV Paris, 2013. Typeset in Garaje, in various weights, widths and sizes, and one single stroke.