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Minotaur
Styles
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Light
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Light Italic
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Regular
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Italic
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Bold
Fast driving by Jack, with the zippy Mazda, quickly excels on the rugged course.
Buy from €70Minotaur Bold Italic
Minotaur In Use
The Guernica exhibition catalog introduces the genesis of one of Picasso’s masterpiece through the links that unite the painting to its painter all along his life, and the way the piece drawn into culture up to becoming a popular icon. Painted in 1937, this monumental artwork is both a synthesis of the plastic research conducted by Picasso for 40 years and a popular icon. Exhibited, replicated all over the world, it has been at the same time an anti-franco, an anti-fascist and a pacific symbol. It is also an abundantly quoted, commented and taken up artwork, theorized by art historians and artists.
The in-house designers at Gallimard set the book with Minotaur, a typeface that was originally conceived for (but eventually never used by) the Musée Picasso where the exhibition takes place. Minotaur's name is a reference to Picasso's obsession for this creature and its no surprise that in such a book, the name would eventually appear and be set with the typeface! Body text is typeset with Louize, a revival of Perrin’s Augustaux by Matthieu Cortat (see also Alice Savoie’s review).Éditions Gallimard / 320 pages / 25 × 32,5 cmMinotaur Bold
Guernica exhibition catalog- 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.
Cardinal Classic Long Bold + Stratos Black + Proto Grotesk Bold + Proto Slab Bold + Countach Bold + Minotaur Lombardic Bold + Minotaur Beef Bold + Minotaur Sans Bold + Minotaur Beef Bold
Trax magazine
Information
Design
Jean-Baptiste Levée
Release Date
2014-07-22Team
Yoann Minet
Quentin Schmerber
Hugues Gentile
Version
1.501Awards & distinctions
Type Directors Club New York Certificate of excellence 2015
Typo365 best of 2014
Club des Directeurs Artistiques shortlist 2014
Typographica’s favourite of 2014
Typefacts Best of 2014
About this font
How does one reference Cubism in a typeface? The most obvious tack would be to disassemble each letter and render it broken and abstracted. That might produce something interesting to look at, but not something that can be used. Minotaur is more practical, but no less interesting. Initially created for a Paris art museum, Minotaur Sans and Serif is a family of straight lines inspired by the Cubist movement. Its roots are Venus, a landmark Grotesque from the era that gave rise to Cubism, and two serif models: Bruce’s Scotch Roman and A. V. Hershey’s series for early vector-based computing. Not only are the letters’ outlines atypical, but their set number of widths – derived from historical technical limitations – play with expectations too.
Despite their seemingly primitive restraints, these fonts are legible at any size. And they have their own beauty too: Minotaur Serif, in particular, balances its harsh contours with the elegant skeleton of its early 20th-century model.
Minotaur offers a richness not found in most type; one that rewards viewers in new ways as they step closer to the canvas.
Despite their seemingly primitive restraints, these fonts are legible at any size. And they have their own beauty too: Minotaur Serif, in particular, balances its harsh contours with the elegant skeleton of its early 20th-century model.
Minotaur offers a richness not found in most type; one that rewards viewers in new ways as they step closer to the canvas.
Formats
Static (OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2)About the designers
Jean-Baptiste Levée is a type designer with a strong focus on corporate and bespoke typefaces.
Jean-Baptiste Levée
CEO, founder
Jean-Baptiste Levée (1981) has designed over a hundred typefaces for industry, moving pictures, fashion and media. He is the founder of the independent foundry Production Type.