French early 19th century typefaces?

buzzu25 March 2010 · 14:17

Hello everyone,

I'm an illustration major working on my graduation project which is an illustrated biography of Jean-Francois Champollions (1790 – 1832), the decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Being an illustrator I'm sadly not very typography savvy so I could really use some help.

The text I'm working with is a mix of narrative and original letters so I'm looking for two fonts: a handwritten one I can use for the letters and a normal seriph-font for the narrative text, both with a sort of French early 19th century feel.

Suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Craig Eliason25 March 2010 · 14:32

I'd consider a Didot for the serif.

Nick Curtis25 March 2010 · 14:39

Ditto the Didot: Firmin Didot Père et Fils printed J-Fs findings.

http://www.todayinsci.com/C/Champollions/ChampollionLettre.jpg

ncaleffi26 March 2010 · 01:16

Honestly, I couldn't think of a digital Didot as a good choice as a body text typeface, given the strong contrast of thick/thin serifs and the inherent weakness of early digital Didot type translations. But a little search gave some interesting results:

http://www.fontshop.com/fontlist/subclasses/serif_didone/

For example, Didot LP by Letter Perfect and FF Cellini seem to be very appropriate.

ncaleffi26 March 2010 · 04:24

Forgot to mention this:

http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100004

Tiffany Wardle26 March 2010 · 12:13

I use Hoefler+Frere-Jones' Didot and I'd say they have plenty of optical choices that you could definitely use their Didot for the body.

Michel Boyer26 March 2010 · 13:30

You can also have a look at http://gallica.bnf.fr/Search?q=champollion where you will get digitized texts (some printed by Firmin-Didot) dating from the period you asked for.

buzzu29 March 2010 · 07:57

Thank you so much everyone for your help. Much appreciated.

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