Printed in 4,500 copies and distributed in Geneva’s La Jonction quarter, this gazette allowed the people to participate, to inform themselves, to reflect and to dream about the future Parc of the Pointe de la Jonction, a place that was left vacant by the departure of the TPG buses at the end of 2020.

The role of this gazette was to announce the activities that took place on the site during the summer of 2021. It became one of the tools for consultation for the creation of this new space in collaboration with the citizens, the Forum Pointe de la Jonction and the associations and the City of Geneva.

The masthead of la gazette du parc is set in Forgotten Shapes’ Schmale Egyptienne No. 12 FSL, while for the body text Production Type’s Proto Slab is used. Spicing up this typographic palette are colorful illustrations by Popy Matigot and titling fonts that change with each of the four issues that have been published. These include Clementhorpe Italic (no. 1), Bagerich (no. 2), CirrusCumulus (no. 3), and Garaje 1803 (no. 4).

All issues are available for download as pdfs.

Zocalo is an urbanism and space planning agency based in Toulouse, founded by Chantal Guitton. Zocalo approaches projects with sensibility: specialized in public space programming, the agency focuses on the project as a web of relationships, as much in its conception as in its result, urban planning being a key actor in the modeling of space in its political aspect. This motivated the choice of Zocalo as name: in Mexico, El Zócalo is the central square of any city, where anyone from any social class, origin, or profession can meet, becoming therefore a symbol of public space. After having witnessed this during a year-long stay in Mexico, Chantal Guitton decided to name her agency after this space she had come to love.

For the design of the website, Maison Solide had to find a way to present the texts describing the approach of Zocalo and make them as intimate and adaptable as the methodology of conception proposed by the agency. The graphic designers based the design on the association of three – sometimes colliding – elements: hand-drawn diagrams and illustrations, changing colors from one page to another, and a typeface superfamily with a great presence, Proto Grotesk and Proto Slab from Production Type. The footer displaying a large “Zocalo” in caps mixed from both subfamilies is a strong identifier of the website. Shown against different colored backgrounds, it concludes pages divided into rows. Each row is illustrated by a black-and-white image whose hand-drawn style brings evidence of a human sensitivity and evokes projects dealt at a small scale: it also pairs well with Proto Grotesk and its manual aspect that shines through in its pinched joins. A page dedicated to “Reflexions” combines type, drawings and color, when the user hovers on the different initials of the keywords “Use”, “Participation”, “Beauty” and “Flexibility”: as a drawing becomes visible, the keyword rotates at 180°, symbolizing the adaptability of Zocalo. Finally, the website is a good transposition of the philosophy of the agency, based on clarity, relationships and adaptation.

Proto Slab in use for the English title and the author name on the cover of 万物起源, the Chinese edition of David Bercovici’s The Origins of Everything in 100 Pages (More or Less) by Beijing Imaginist Time Culture / Guangxi Normal University Press. Paris-based Atelier AAAAA provided the cover design and the colorful illustrations. The gothic fonts used for the Chinese text are unidentified [edit: they are from the Lantinghei family, see comments]. The book was originally published in 2016 by Yale University Press:

With wonder, wit, and flair—and in record time and space—geophysicist David Bercovici explains how everything came to be everywhere, from the creation of stars and galaxies to the formation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, to the origin of life and human civilization. Bercovici marries humor and legitimate scientific intrigue, rocketing readers across nearly fourteen billion years and making connections between the essential theories that give us our current understanding of topics as varied as particle physics, plate tectonics, and photosynthesis. Bercovici’s unique literary endeavor is a treasure trove of real, compelling science and fascinating history, providing both science lovers and complete neophytes with an unforgettable introduction to the fields of cosmology, geology, genetics, climate science, human evolution, and more.

Proto Slab by Production Type is used for Speed of Life. The exhibition presents works by American photographer Peter Hujar. Curated by Joel Smith and Quentin Bajac, it is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, and Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid.

The visuals for the presentation at Jeu de Paume, Paris were designed by Matter of Fact. They used Proto Slab for posters, banners, invitations and online graphics. The slab serif with the pinched joints is shown in purple letters from the Light weight, in two contrasting sizes.

Production Type’s Proto Collection in use for Fretboard Journal, a quarterly print magazine for instrument lovers. Design director André Mora recently refreshed the typographic palette. Starting with issue No. 40, he added a number of Proto fonts to the mix.

While the magazine logo, the subheads, and all body copy are still set in various optical sizes from John Downer’s Paperback, the opening spreads now feature members of Jean-Baptiste Levée’s exploration into early grots and egyptians. In addition to Proto Grotesk and Proto Slab, Mora makes skilled and varied use of the Mono and Slab Condensed styles, too. These appeared in Fretboard Journal already prior to their official release in 2019. The palette is completed by Evert Bloemsma’s FF Balance which is used for captions and other small print.

“Interesting Things”: Proto Slab Condensed Bold for the headline, Paperback for the deck, and caps from Balance for the credits.

“A Southern Line”: Proto Grotesk in all caps from the Bold (yellow) and Regular (white) weights.

Proto Slab Bold for “Diamonds in the Rough”.

Proto Slab Condensed Bold is used with one of its alternate forms for r: The glyph with the vertically cut ending can be accessed via Stylistic Set 7.

Proto Grotesk Bold (black) together with the monospaced Proto Grotesk Mono Light (red and underlined), for a feature about Robert “Big Sandy” Williams.

“Research and Development”: Proto Slab Bold.

Proto Grotesk Bold paired with Proto Slab ExtraLight. With their comparable weights and proportions, the four families are made to be used together.

“A Pirate’s Life For Me” comes in caps from Proto Grotesk Mono Bold.

Proto Slab Condensed Black in all caps for “Bluegrass Like Breathing”.

Trax is France’s leading magazine and website for electronic music and culture. Founded in Paris in 1997, Trax was historically intermingled with its subject (from the early days of the “French Touch” to later major acts), witnessing, recording, and surviving the dramatic changes of the music industry and the rise of electronic culture. In 2013, the magazine was eventually bought by its own employees. Trax turned 18 in 2015 and decided to reflect these changes with a new format.

Production Type’s Jean-Baptiste Levée, in collaboration with Large design studio, rethought the new Trax from the ground up. Starting from a new magazine format and art direction, and a new logo drawn by Levée (based on Stunt Nord, a standalone style of the Stunt family, to be released), the overhaul extended beyond the magazine to all aspects of the Trax brand, such as the website, events, and digital products.

The type palette provided by Production Type is a compound of existing off-the-shelf types, new extensions, and previously unseen designs. The main text typeface is Cardinal, a serifed alphabet drawn by Yoann Minet & Quentin Schmerber under Levée’s guidance. Cardinal refers to many classic Jannon-inspired typefaces that were popular in 1990s digital culture, and distantly echoes the ill-fated typeface ITC Garamond. In this way, Cardinal Photo and Cardinal Fruit are two extra sidekicks, reminiscent of an era where the early photocomposition faces were swapped with their electronic counterparts. Stratos, Minet’s own design, while being unreleased at the time, was featured in the layout since the first issue redesigned by the team. Minotaur Lombardic & Proto Slab debuted on the cover of Trax magazine (respectively on issues 185 & 190), too. Existing designs from the Production Type catalog were also put to use across all Trax channels: Minotaur, Minotaur Sans, Minotaur Beef, Countach, and Proto Grotesk, which gained newly drawn weights specifically for the brand.

Read more about the project on It’s Nice That and see more pictures on Large website.

A year ago, Charles Bréant and his four brothers decided to open a cheese production line in a bid to diversify the family farm located in Bermonville, at the heart of the Pays de Caux, north west of Rouen. Instead of inventing a new variety, they chose to go back to basics and settled on making Camembert, Normandy’s most famous cheese. The idea wasn’t revolutionary, but it marked the opening of the only Camembert production site in the Seine-Maritime département.

What makes the Bréant family’s cheese so special then? First, it’s a Camembert fermier, meaning the entire production process is completed on the farm. All the milk comes from the family’s own herd of 200 dairy cows, and Charles knows exactly what they’ve been fed. Only raw milk is used, and the cheeses are moulés à la louche (moulded by ladle), just as they should be. After a month’s ripening, they are boxed and packaged on site, bearing a very distinctive label. [from Normandy Foodie]

For the label displaying the brand name Le 5 Frères (The 5 Brothers), the Bréant brothers asked the type designer Jean-Baptiste Levée, born and raised right next to their production site, to take care of the packaging design.

Levée and his Production Type team handled the design with great care, avoiding clichés picturing “a lazy cow or an idyllic Norman village”. Instead they dug intensively into the Maciet collection in the library of Les Arts Décoratifs in Paris, in the hope to refer classy packaging from the past at a time where the cheese was still a luxury product.

Eventually, they ended up with a minimalist composition: a geometrical perspective made with five triangles, one for each brother. The blue and white alternance evoques burrows in a plowed field or an endless path reaching the horizon. They paired Proto Slab (nicely set on a curve) with an early version of the now freshly released Antique Gothic (derived from a type originally designed for Louis Vuitton). Antique Gothic’s distinctive ‘5’ and its various capital heights helped the brand define its own voice on the stalls of local shops and delicatessen.

‘We really wanted to try something different and our main aim was to target a younger audience with our packaging,’ says Charles. The blue and white triangles sure do stand out!

The brand name set in Antique Gothic is also printed on the wooden side of the box.

Charles Bréant, along with his four brothers, is the founder and producer of Le 5 Frères. He’s pictured in his production line proudly showing the camembert and its packaging.

Le 5 Frères boxes displayed in a refrigerated stall. Le 5 Frères is mainly sold at local markets, cheese shops and delicatessen, and is also on the menu of several restaurants across Normandy.