PVC

Styles

BannerBuy from €90 Banner UltraBuy from €90 MenuBuy from €90 PromoBuy from €90 DynastyBuy from €90 Dynasty ItalicBuy from €90 ExpressBuy from €90

PVC In Use

The Maison de la Culture of Amiens (MCA) is the major hub for cultural events in this northern French city. In 2018 it equipped itself with a new visual identity described in a previous review. This post is dedicated to the means of communication that Julien Lelièvre worked out for the 2019/2020 season. Three design principles can be discerned: graphically altered photographs, the use of vivid colors (at times plain, at times in gradients), and last but not least a set of eye-catching typefaces, all released by Production Type from Paris. While the MCA logo lettering is set from PVC Banner Ultra, the figures “19/20” stem from PVC Dynasty. That same typeface was also used for most of the big-size headlines on posters and the chapter dividers in the program booklet. With its triangular serifs and the diagonal contrast axis, Dynasty shares some DNA with the romain Elzévir – the oldstyle roman of the French tradition – but cranks up the spikiness to eleven. The MCA 2019/20 season was one the first applications of the original serif, predating the release in Production Type’s LAB section in November 2021. The version seen here exhibits a number of differences when compared to the final version. Both Banner and Dynasty were designed by Hélène Marian and are part of the larger display family PVC that also includes the narrow PVC Menu which you can spot in use as titling face in some of the media and as a secondary face on others. The bouquet of typefaces is rounded off with the (yet unreleased) Text version of Jean-Baptiste Levée’s Media Sans, Bold and Regular, used predominantly for texts for continuous reading.
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PVC Dynasty + PVC Menu + PVC Banner + Media Sans Black + Signal Bold
Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, 2019/20 season
The Maison de la Culture of Amiens, France, is the main cultural hub of that city for all sorts of events, from exhibitions to dance and drama. Julien Lelièvre is the graphic designer who, back in 2018, developed a new house style for this institution. Ever since he finds exciting and surprising derivations of the central theme for each season. This post is dedicated to the visual communication of the 2020/2021 season. The cover variants of the program booklet play with the stark contrast of plain yellow and red, colors associated with danger, heat and action. The only graphic elements used are the Maison de la Culture logotype and the figures “2021”, both set in PVC Banner Ultra designed by Hélène Marian and published by Production Type. The typeface was developed with exactly this kind of use in mind: to maximally fill up the horizontal space. Looking inside the brochure we see the way the pictures participate in the game of yellow and red: their lower half is systematically altered to a duotone look. The dividing spread “Hiver” uses a blury photograph, overdrawn with a digitally generated pattern, red on yellow. In addition to PVC Banner, PVC Menu is used in the brochure as a titling face and the yet to be released Text version of Media Sans by Jean-Baptiste Levée in its Regular and Bold cuts for the longer reads.
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PVC Banner + PVC Menu
Maison de la Culture Amiens, 2020/21 season

Information

Design

Hélène Marian

Release Date

2018-11-20

Team

Jean-Baptiste Levée

Hugues Gentile

Léa Bruneau

Arthur Schwarz

Version

1.003

Awards & distinctions

Contemporary Type - Best Fonts 2023

Hiii Typography Finalist 优异奖 2023

Hiii Typography Nominee 优异奖 2018

Download PDF Specimen

About this font

PVC is a rambunctious font family that plays at the edges of width and weight. Just like PolyVinyl Chloride, it is extremely durable and incredibly versatile.

Versatilty is indeed of the essence for that type family, which includes six super-varied styles: Menu, Promo, Banner, Banner Ultra, Dynasty, and Express. All of them share a hearty backbone rooted in lettering and shop sign design, but differ in regards to the tools used to draw the typeface. The resulting shapes showcase radically disparate design personalities and ways to fill in design briefs. Here’s a walkthrough:

PVC Menu is Marian’s personal take on typical French brush lettering styles (such as the ones that lead to the design of the notorious Antique Olive decades ago). Menu is conceived as the family’s go-to style, its sturdiness being efficient in most design cases, from loud yet elegant uppercases to the je-ne-sais-quoi of the lowercases.

PVC Dynasty is the family’s serif with a deliberately strong personality. While the font’s other styles are steering towards extreme width (Banner) or density (Promo), PVC Dynasty and its italics pursue explorations around space-filling typesetting by focusing on the inner space of words, having no shame in some letter shape being intertwined. Remember, there is “Nasty” in “Dynasty”. It is nervous, spiky, unbalanced. PVC Dynasty can display anything as long as it needs to show how original it is.

PVC Banner is obsessed with filling the horizontal space: store signs, rolls of adhesive tapes, truck tarps, drumsticks… You name it. Of course, PVC Banner can also be stacked vertically and deliver a different rhythm. If this is not enough, the thicker PVC Banner Ultra is even more intense and should do the work.

PVC Promo is here to… promote your message, making sure that it will never be discounted! Compact yet bulky, Promo strives to be visible, even in tricky situations. The heavier, the better.

PVC Express shares a strong point of view with its siblings: speed and space matter. The quick gesture drawn from Marian’s ultra-fast practice is paramount in the way Express goes full throttle. Also based on her own sign-painting practice, PVC Express proposes a translation of this “work of speed” into a readymade digital typeface. Swift loopy gestures — a typical feat of the trade — are preserved in this aptly named style.

PVC Korean support is powered by Sandoll Rotary (Sandoll), Sandoll Press (Sandoll).

Formats

Static (OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2)

Language support

Acheron, Achinese, Acholi, Afar, Afrikaans, Alekano, Aleut, Amahuaca, Amarakaeri, Amis, Anaang, Andaandi, Dongolawi, Anuta, Ao Naga, Aragonese, Arbëreshë Albanian, Arvanitika Albanian, Asháninka, Ashéninka Perené, Asu (Tanzania), Atayal, Balinese, Bari, Basque, Batak Dairi, Batak Karo, Batak Mandailing, Batak Simalungun, Batak Toba, Bemba (Zambia), Bena (Tanzania), Bikol, Bislama, Borana-Arsi-Guji Oromo, Bosnian, Breton, Buginese, Candoshi-Shapra, Caquinte, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Catalan, Cebuano, Central Aymara, Central Kurdish, Chamorro, Chavacano, Chiga, Chiltepec Chinantec, Chokwe, Chuukese, Cimbrian, Cofán, Congo Swahili, Cook Islands Māori, Cornish, Corsican, Creek, Crimean Tatar, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dehu, Dutch, Eastern Arrernte, Eastern Oromo, Embu, English, Ese Ejja, Faroese, Fijian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Friulian, Ga’anda, Galician, Ganda, German, Gheg Albanian, Gilbertese, Gooniyandi, Gourmanchéma, Guadeloupean Creole French, Gusii, Haitian, Hani, Hiligaynon, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Huastec, Hungarian, Icelandic, Iloko, Inari Sami, Indonesian, Irish, Istro Romanian, Italian, Ixcatlán Mazatec, Jamaican Creole English, Japanese, Javanese, Jola-Fonyi, K'iche', Kabuverdianu, Kala Lagaw Ya, Kalaallisut, Kalenjin, Kamba (Kenya), Kaonde, Karelian, Kashubian, Kekchí, Kenzi, Mattokki, Khasi, Kikuyu, Kimbundu, Kinyarwanda, Kituba (DRC), Kölsch, Kongo, Konzo, Kuanyama, Kven Finnish, Ladin, Ladino, Latgalian, Ligurian, Lithuanian, Lombard, Low German, Lower Sorbian, Luba-Lulua, Lule Sami, Luo (Kenya and Tanzania), Luxembourgish, Macedo-Romanian, Makhuwa, Makhuwa-Meetto, Makonde, Makwe, Malagasy, Malaysian, Maltese, Mandinka, Manx, Maore Comorian, Maori, Mapudungun, Matsés, Mauritian Creole, Meriam Mir, Meru, Minangkabau, Mirandese, Mískito, Mohawk, Montenegrin, Munsee, Murrinh-Patha, Mwani, Naga Pidgin, Ndonga, Neapolitan, Ngazidja Comorian, Niuean, Nobiin, Nomatsiguenga, North Ndebele, Northern Kurdish, Northern Qiandong Miao, Northern Sami, Northern Uzbek, Norwegian, Nyanja, Nyankole, Occitan, Orma, Oroqen, Palauan, Paluan, Pampanga, Papiamento, Pedi, Picard, Pichis Ashéninka, Piemontese, Pijin, Pintupi-Luritja, Pohnpeian, Polish, Portuguese, Potawatomi, Quechua, Romanian, Romansh, Rotokas, Rundi, Rwa, Samburu, Samoan, Sango, Sangu (Tanzania), Saramaccan, Sardinian, Scottish Gaelic, Sena, Seri, Seselwa Creole French, Shambala, Shawnee, Shipibo-Conibo, Shona, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovak, Slovenian, Soga, Somali, Soninke, South Ndebele, Southern Aymara, Southern Qiandong Miao, Southern Sami, Southern Sotho, Spanish, Sranan Tongo, Standard Estonian, Standard Latvian, Standard Malay, Sundanese, Swahili, Swati, Swedish, Swiss German, Tagalog, Tahitian, Taita, Tedim Chin, Tetum, Tetun Dili, Tiv, Tok Pisin, Tokelau, Tonga (Tonga Islands), Tosk Albanian, Tsonga, Tswana, Tumbuka, Turkish, Turkmen, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Uab Meto, Ume Sami, Upper Guinea Crioulo, Upper Sorbian, Venetian, Veps, Võro, Walloon, Walser, Wangaaybuwan-Ngiyambaa, Waray (Philippines), Warlpiri, Wayuu, Welsh, West Central Oromo, Western Abnaki, Western Frisian, Wik-Mungkan, Wiradjuri, Wolof, Xhosa, Yanesha', Yao, Yapese, Yindjibarndi, Yucateco, Záparo, Zulu

About the designers

“Format is my first trigger for ideas, the starting point for shapes.”
Hélène Marian
Designer
Hélène Marian is a type designer, a signpainter, and a graphic designer. Her work is based on the use of letters, which she lays out, vectorizes or paints by hand.
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Glyphs

OpenType Features

Production Type ships OpenType fonts with built-in features such as ligatures, alternates, or pictograms. Here are some of the most important features. To view a comprehensive list of features, please refer to the PDF specimen.

Case-Sensitive Forms

[CASE-SENSITIVE] !¡?¿-–—()[]{}‹›«»·

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Standard Ligatures

fichier flicker affliger

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Slashed Zero

0123456789

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Superscript

H1234

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Ordinals

2a 2o No.

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Ornaments

+ − ± × ÷ = < >

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Stylistic Set 1

TOKEN

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Stylistic Set 2

LIQUIDS

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Stylistic Set 3

AIRLINE

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Stylistic Set 4

Plastic

off

Stylistic Set 5

Engine

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Stylistic Set 6

Trucks

off

Stylistic Set 7

Sticker

off

Stylistic Set 8

Cyclist

off

Stylistic Set 9

<>+−×÷=±

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Stylistic Set 10

←→↑↓↖↗↙↘

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Stylistic Set 11

abcdef

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Pair well with PVC

PVC Dynasty
Useful type with an edge.
Dr Regular
Creates versatile, expressive, and functional fonts
PVC Banner
Useful type with an edge.
Big Daily Short Italic
Creates versatile, expressive, and functional fonts
PVC Promo
Useful type with an edge.
Cardinal Classic Mid Bold
Creates versatile, expressive, and functional fonts

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