Biography
Founder of Typofonderie, type director of ZeCraft, Jean François Porchez is one of the pioneers of digital typography. Transmitter of knowledge and discoverer of talents, teamwork is at the heart of his concerns. It is also for these reasons that he launched TypeParis in 2015.
After training as a graphic designer, during which he focused on type design, Jean François Porchez (1964) worked as a type director at Dragon Rouge, then at Le Monde newspaper in early 90s. He was President of the Association Typographique Internationale in 2004–2007. Founder and head of ECV Master design & Typography between 2011-2019. He is board member of the Club des Directeurs Artistiques in Paris and member of the Type Directors Club in New York.
He was awarded the Prix Charles Peignot in 1998 and numerous prizes for his typefaces. Introduced to French Who’s Who in 2009. In 2014, Perrousseaux publishes his monograph. Knight in the order of Arts and Letters in 2015. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron use his typefaces for his communication since 2017.
He taught type design at Type@Cooper, Cooper Union (United States), at the MA typeface design at the Reading University (United Kingdom), at Ensad, (France) and conduct regularly type design workshops all over the world. Founded the french community Le Typographe in 2003. He published Lettres Françaises, a book (in French & English) that shows all contemporary French, digital typefaces. For the Linotype Library Platinum collection, he has created a revival of the Sabon, a Jan Tschichold revival of Garamond in 2002. He was the President of a jury set up by the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale to select the new handwriting model and system for France and was a jury member of the 3rd Linotype Type design Contest (Germany), of the 1st Biennial of Slovene Visual Communications (Slovenia), of the Typeface design competition TDC2 (United States), of the Design category at the Club des directeurs artistiques as well category Typography launched with Guillaume Chifflot. He was international guest for the biennial of Croatian Design. He was jury member of the D&AD Craft Design (United Kingdom) in 2017. He was chair of the first Typography category at Arts Directors Club (United States) jury in 2018.
Notable clients: Apple Inc., Arjowiggins, Beyoncé Knowles, The Boston Consulting Group, Costa Crocieres, Disney Television Animation, France Télécom, Galeries Lafayette, Le Monde, La Tour d’Argent, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso, Palais de l’Élysée, RATP (Public Transport in Paris), Yves Saint Laurent Beauty.