Signal Compressed

Signal Compressed In Use

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  Since the French Percent-for-art program has been extended to the Ministry of Transport in 1980, the country saw more and more rest areas along its highways embellished with public art sculptures. Some are truly exquisite, others less so – beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What most of them have in common is the colossal size. Astoundingly, this quality didn’t save them from being overlooked by general public and art historians. There was no comprehensive register or database covering France’s “Highway Art” until graphic designer Julien Lelièvre took the initiative. From 2009 to 2015 he travelled thousands of kilometers, photographing and documenting 71 of these pieces of art. In 2019 Lelièvre’s research was translated into the richly illustrated book Art d’autoroute, designed by Building Paris. It was the first title of their new publishing branch Building Books, dedicated to landscape, urbanism, and architecture. For the typography of the book, Lelièvre teamed up with Emmanuel Besse who, in 2018, had released Signal Compressed in Production Type’s LAB section. Besse’s Signal Compressed draws its inspiration from the lettering painted on streets to inform drivers. In this book, the typeface is used in small quantities but prominent spots. The second typeface used, Signal, was actually developed around this publication. It has its roots in Caractères, the lettering style for French road signage, legally defined since 1948. The designers complemented it with lowercase letters and carried it to a fully functional typeface suitable for setting reading text. Emmanuel Besse and Production Type meanwhile developed Signal into an extensive family.

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  Signal Regular + Signal Compressed Regular

  Art d’autoroute by Julien Lelièvre (Building Books)
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  The Campus des Métiers d’Art et du Design is a space fostering reflection and exchange for professionals working in the fields of art and design in Paris and the Île-de-France region. The Académie du Climat aims to be the new landmark for ecology in Paris, providing means to educate, explain, learn and better understand the climate challenge. Together, the two institutions launched an exhibition that showcased environmentally-friendly art and design works. It featured projects by graduates of seventeen art and design schools from the Campus des Métiers d’art et du Design. The title of the exhibition references the book Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek (1923–1998), a leading advocate of eco-responsible design in the 1970s. Jeanne Triboul worked on the visual identity including the design of the printed matter and the wayfinding, together with Coralie Milière of Studio Silex. For the title and display typeface, they chose Signal Compressed by Emmanuel Besse. With its squeezed proportions, it conveys an appropriate sense of urgency. Its reversed contrast – with horizontals that are thicker than verticals – also echoes the look of wood type as used in the American Wild West, making Signal Compressed itself a “design for a wild world”. On a practical level, its narrow proportions allowed the designers to show the title in very large letters. The exhibition poster, which was Riso-printed at Quintal Atelier, also serves as a guide with information and floor plans on the back. The text and the labels are set in a stylistically quite different typeface that’s likewise available from Production Type: it’s Sainte Colombe, an expressive serif designed by Yoann Minet. Sainte Colombe is also used for the names of the participating schools shown as “shooting stars” on the front. Design for a Wild World was shown at the Académie du Climat from September 8–12, 2022, during Paris Design Week.

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  Signal Compressed Regular + Sainte Colombe Bold

  Design for a Wild World

OpenType Features

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