Jean-Baptiste Levée
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.
Born in the picturesque region of rural Normandy to a postman and a French teacher, Jean-Baptiste Levée was inspired to pursue a path in letters. He developed his craft in Paris under the guidance of Franck Jalleau at the École Estienne, and later refined his skills through apprenticeships at Typophage and Typofonderie. Levée took part in the burgeoning French typographic movement of the late 2000s and co-founded the Bureau des Affaires Typographiques, before establishing the digital type design agency Production Type in 2014. The agency has since created retail and custom type for clients such as Google, LVMH, Christian Dior, Ubisoft, Vanity Fair, Nike, Louis Vuitton, and Cartier. In 2019, Levée established the China branch of Production Type in Shanghai, in partnership with Tao Chen.
An international lecturer and business consultant, Levée has been a design expert advisor for the French Public Investment Bank (BPI) for 6 years, where he championed the integration of design in innovative businesses. He is a fervent advocate of type design as a collaborative and communal effort, and has held various positions within associations and educational institutions. He has served as the Vice-President of the Association Typographique Internationale, contributed as a writer, columnist, and editor for an array of blogs, forums, and media outlets, and is an honorary counsellor of the Letterform Archive of San Francisco. Currently, Levée teaches art direction in typeface design at the Institut Français de la Mode.
Jean-Baptiste Levée’s designs have received a number of accolades, including awards from the Type Directors Clubs of New York and Tokyo, the D&AD, Communication Arts, APCI, and CDA. His work is also featured in the permanent collections of the French national library (BnF), the Chicago Newberry Library, the Klingspor Museum, the Decorative Arts museum of Paris, the French National Center of arts (Cnap), and several printing museums in Europe.
More contents
Font: Minotaur Italic
Features & interviews in English
- 2024 Communication Arts: On Production Type
- 2021 The Brand Identity: Production Type's transparent, worry-free and easy-to-use font licensing
- 2021 Dealing with dealing: Jean-Baptiste Levée's Developments
- 2021 Creative Review: How to find the right type design partner
- 2021 Creative Review: Why type should be as simple as art buying
- 2019 Type Directors Club SMS interview
- 2018 MagCulture profile
- 2017 Jean Baptiste Levée - At the Museum
- 2016 Production Type: useful typefaces with an edge
- 2016 ATypI Warsaw interview
- 2015 Ligature.ch
Lectures in English
- 2018 When is Type Not Type?, ISType Mono Istanbul.
- 2017 A designer perspective on OpenType Font Variations—chances and risks, TypoTalks Berlin.
- 2017 Good type design is good business, Element Talks Warsaw.
- 2016 La Typographie Moderne, Type@Cooper NYC.
- 2016 Shine bright like a letter, ATypI Warsaw.
- 2016 Starting a type foundry 101: a checklist, ATypI Warsaw.
- 2016 The sans serif as a design pattern: finding artistic renewal in repeating environments, EsadType Amiens.
Conférences, reportages en français
- 2024 Podcast ABCDE: Jean-Baptiste Levée Créateur de caractères typographiques
- 2020 Podcast + MOOC: la création typographique contemporaine avec Jean-Baptiste Levée + Entretien audio
- 2020 Les coulisses de la rénovation du Mur des Noms
- 2017 Typographie à l’écran, typographie de l’écran, BlendWebMix Lyon
Entretiens en français
- 2021 Dealing with dealing: Jean-Baptiste Levée's Developments
- 2020 Admirable Design
- 2017 « Le leadership artistique vient des petits acteurs indépendants », étapes.
- 2017 Jean-Baptiste Levée à #BlendWebMix 2017 BlendWebMix Lyon
- 2017 Exaprint
- 2016 Découvrez le travail de typographe
- 2015 Le Courrier Cauchois
- 2015 PixelCreation.fr
- 2011 Ministère de la Culture