Jean-Baptiste Levée

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.