Culture
Words by Michel Wlassikoff
Deberny et Peignot’s “Jacno”
Jacno, benefited from an cutting and a wide distribution from 1949 by Deberny and Peignot. The type is thus presented in the specimen which presides over its marketing:
“By drawing from the very sources of the gesture of writing, Marcel Jacno has, in this new typeface, restored to the letters their power of expression and their warmth, thus creating a reaction that can be opposed to rigor formality which manifested itself in the typography of the years between the two wars. The logic of cursive tracing encouraged Jacno to eliminate certain capital forms of epigraphic design incompatible with the cursive principle adopted; the AMNQ forms have disappeared, replaced by the corresponding cursive forms. These new “capital letters” are only the “lower case letters” of the upper body. This particularity will give the “Jacno” great flexibility of use.”
In many ways, Jacno is the fruit of his thoughts during the war. He sought to “draw from the very sources of the gesture of writing”, as evidenced by most of the alphabets that he designed in parallel.
Document: Archives Signes
