Culture
Words by Michel Wlassikoff
Deberny Peignot’s “Robur”
Auriol’s Robur, is a first attempt at transitioning from Art Nouveau to a more modern typeface. The typeface remained appreciated through to the 1960s after the Deberny & Peignot merger.
Auriol’s Robur, is a first attempt at transitioning from Art Nouveau to a more modern typeface. The typeface remained appreciated through to the 1960s after the Deberny & Peignot merger.
Designed by George Auriol for the G. Peignot & Fils foundry, around 1910, Robur is the last creation of the Auriol type series, the publication of which began with the century. Robur is perhaps the least marked “Art Nouveau” of this whole group, its thickness reducing the importance of the arabesque and giving it a more clearly titling function. During the merger which led to the creation of a single foundry, Deberny Peignot, Robur was presented in commercial publications – this would be the case until the 1960s – while that the essentials of Auriol are sidelined. It appears as a modern typeface, and not as a vestige of the Belle Époque, as it is said in the small specimen probably dating from the 1930s: “Robur offers this inappreciable advantage of providing printing with the large blacks and violently assertive spots that titles and modern advertising require…”
Document: École Estienne library
