Peignot (typeface)

Peignot

Category	Unicase stressed sans-serif
Designer	A. M. Cassandre[1]
Foundry	Deberny & Peignot[1]
Date created	1937
Re-issuing foundries	Production Type
Sample

Peignot is a sans-serif display typeface, designed by the poster artist A. M. Cassandre in 1937.^[1] It was commissioned by the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot.^[2]

The typeface is notable for not having a traditional lowercase, but in its place a "multi-case" combining traditional lowercase and small capital characters.^[2] Cassandre intended for Peignot to be used in publishing and stated that "[t]here is no technical reason in printing why we cannot return to the noble classical shapes of the alphabet and discard the lower case forms."^[1]

The typeface achieved some popularity in poster and advertising publishing from its release through the late 1940s. Stylistically Peignot is a "stressed" or modulated sans-serif in the Art Deco style, in which the vertical strokes are clearly wider than the horizontals. Use of Peignot declined with the growth of the International Typographic Style, which favored less decorative, more objective, traditional typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk.^{[citation needed]}

Production Type holds the rights to Peignot and has digitized the font since 2023.^[3]

A very similar typeface, Chambord by Roger Excoffon, was released by the Fonderie Olive in Marseille in 1945; it had a traditional lowercase.^[2]

See also

• Samples of display typefaces

References

1. McNeil, Paul (November 9, 2017). The Visual History of Type (print). London: Laurence King. p. 300–301. ISBN 9781780679761. OCLC 1004655550.
2. Savoie, Alice. "French Type Foundries in the Twentieth Century". Type Culture. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
3. "Production Type × Cassandre". Production Type. Retrieved 2025-05-01.