École Duperré identity

Studio Passages was commissioned to rethink the identity of the École Duperré, an art school in Paris, France. The studio decided to work together with Production Type to create a custom typeface for the school, which would be the sole definitive component of the new identity.

Duperré Sans is a stable yet quirky font family, composed of a regular version – in two weights and an italic – and a monospaced one, Duperré Courrier. This setup led to a playful identity, where the monospaced style is used for display and the proportonially spaced ones whenever the focus is more on text. The choice of a monospace is rather appropriate for a school with a technical legacy: the location at rue Dupetit-Thouars in the third arrondissement used to host the first school ever to offer courses in “esthétique industrielle” (the French equivalent of industrial design) in Paris. Moreover, monospaced fonts tend to be used in art publications, as a reminder of conceptual art’s esthetics of the 60s, showing typewritten statements. The identity created by Passages and Production Type is an update to this technical and artistic legacy. The Duperré typeface shows some characteristics of grotesque typefaces, evading the trap of historicity by mixing the references. On the other hand, the graphic design is versatile, and doesn’t play by the rules for what the corporate identity of an art school should look like: in each instance, the publications offer a different view of the school. The use of neon and bright colors make it dynamic, lively, reflecting the creativity that we expect from art students.