TF, 2 letters that signify at the same time Type Foundry and Typographie Française (French Typography). 205TF is a type foundry that brings together the work of independent typeface designers, some of them well known, others closer to the beginning of their career, all highly talented. Each of them developing characters where a certain French spirit can be felt. 205TF is a foundry on a human scale, and beyond the distribution of their work, it supports typeface designers by making their creations available to a wider audience, allowing for greater recognition of their work.
205TF makes a choice of quality: a small number of creators, a precise selection of characters. The number is of little importance, the quality however is essential.
All of the characters are developed according to common standards (set standard, set pro and set spécial). The typefaces have – at a minimum – an extended set of characters (Latin extended) and this allows them to be used for compositions in a wide range of languages. With an Opentype format, they provide access to specific characters such as small capitals (according to the characters), different series of figures (aligned, old style, proportional and tabular), ligatures, fractions, etc.
This format allows access to specific typographic settings according to the characters. - For the group of characters – functions “All caps”, “Case sensitive punctuation”, “Tabular lining figures”, “Tabular old-style figures”, “Proportional old-style figures”, “Ligatures”, “Fractions”, “Ordinals”, “Contextual alternates”, “Localized forms”, etc.
For certain characters — “Small capitals”, “Capitals to Small Capitals”.
The presentation and interest of each function are detailed in the typeface specimens that can be downloaded for each typeface.
The groups of characters function with both MacOs and Windows platforms and have been tested for Office and Adobe applications. They can then be easily installed on the vast majority of computers and the direct transfer of a file that uses 205TF typefaces from one platform to another and from a Macintosh version of software to a Windows version of software is a process which is seamless.
For cases involving a specific and/or proprietary operating system or specific software, please contact us directly.
Team
Rémi Forte, Foundry Manager
As Foundry Manager, Rémi Forte supports 205TF’s type designers in the development of their projects. He is also in charge of the foundry’s communication and customer relations.
Alongside his work for 205TF, Rémi is developing a practice-based research thesis in the TransCrit Research Unit (University of Paris 8), which follows his studies at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts (ENSBA) in Lyon, and Atelier national de recherche typographique (ANRT) in Nancy.
He also teaches graphic design and typography.
Damien Gautier, Founder and Partner
Cofounder of 205TF in 2017, Damien Gautier is codirecting the foundry’s operations and contributing to the catalogue as a type designer. His typefaces are available exclusively at 205TF, such as Maax, Plaak, Plaax, Alcalá or Beretta.
Florence Roller, Founder and Partner
Cofounder of 205TF in 2017, Florence Roller is codirecting the foundry’s operations. She leads with Damien Gautier the graphic design studio Bureau 205 and the publishing house Éditions deux-cent-cinq. Coauthor of 3 manuals on visual identity, posters and typography, she holds a degree from the École supérieure des Arts du Rhin in Strasbourg (HEAR).
New releases are carefully selected every year by the team and its advisory board, comprised of Matthieu Cortat, Thomas Huot-Marchand and Alice Savoie. They stand for a level of quality that our customers deserve and look for.
Matthieu Cortat is a type designer. He has designed several custom typefaces for clients, such as Eastpak, Caran d’Ache, the City of Lausanne, the Terminal Four at JFK Airport in New York or the TV channel Eurosport. He is Head of Master Type Design at the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL). His typefaces are exclusively available at 205TF, including the most recent ones Zénith, Cosimo, Helvetius, Yorick or Molitor.
Thomas Huot-Marchand divides his time between teaching, type design and graphic design. Since 2012, he is Director of the Atelier national de recherche typographique (ANRT) in Nancy. A former resident of the Académie de France in Rome – Villa Médicis in 2006–2007, then at the Hoffmitz Milken Center for Typography of Pasadena from May to July of 2019, he is now living and working in Besançon, where his activity as a Graphic Designer has developed mainly in the cultural sector. He has been a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since 2010. The typefaces of Thomas Huot-Marchand are exclusively available at 205TF, such as Album, Garaje, Minérale or Minuscule.
Alice Savoie is an independent type designer and researcher. She holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Reading. As a practicing type designer she has collaborated with international foundries and design studios. Her recent type design works include Faune, an award-winning typeface family for the French Centre national des arts plastiques. She teaches at ANRT in Nancy (France) and ECAL in Lausanne (Switzerland). 205TF distributes her typeface Romain 20.
Charly Derouault, Alexis Faudot and Federico Parra regularly collaborate with the foundry as graphic and type designers.
Roxane Gataud did work with 205TF from 2016 to 2020 as a type designer and font engineer.
Thomas Leblond, a graphic designer, participated in the creation of the foundry in 2017.
We look forward to possible font proposals. Please do not hesitate to contact us for sharing your projects.
Matthieu Cortat created Basetica for the studio GVA (Geneva), in the context of the Open Switzerland project, on the occasion of its attachment to the Base group, bringing together 3 agencies in Europe (Brussels) and America (New York). GVA wished to show its attachment to “Swiss Graphic Design” and what it carries in terms of quality, precision and rigour, while at the same time presenting a Switzerland quite different to the usual stereotypes that one can imagine.
Basetica is then, a "contemporary Helvetica", open and with no frills. Raw at times, but always clean and discreet, it revisits the International Swiss Style” with a certain irony.
Proportional Old Style Figures
Tabular Lining Figures
Tabular Old Style Figures
Automatic Fractions
Superiors/Inferiors
Ordinals
Arrows
This standard corresponds to a set of characters that respond to the Extended Latin standard. It allows for the composition of a large majority of Western European languages. To do this, signs have been added to the standard latin alphabet, either through use of diacritic signs, or through construction of specific signs. The Extended Latin standard does not contain specific Cyrillic or Greek characters. The detail of the characters available for each typeface is presented in the typeface specimen that you can download from our website.
The list of languages in which it is possible to compose is in the specimen.
- 21-Sathonay-LightA
- 21-Sathonay-LightB
- 31-Sathonay-Regular
- 41-Sathonay-Bold
- 22-Griffon-Light
- 32-Griffon-Regular
- 42-Griffon-Bold
- 23-Pradel-Light
- 33-Pradel-Regular
- 43-Pradel-Bold
- 24-Terme-Light
- 34-Terme-Regular
- 44-Terme-Bold
- 25-Foch-Light
- 35-Foch-Regular
- 45-Foch-Bold
- 26-Ney-Light
- 36-Ney-Regular
- 46-Ney-Bold
- 56-Ney-Heavy
Plaax (with an x) is an extension of the typeface Plaak (with a k) completed with lowercase letters. Plaax is a large family of 20 cuts.
This typeface takes its inspiration from the characters that one can find on the nameplates of French streets. For a long time, Damien Gautier has been interested in these letters that everyone sees on a daily basis without really knowing them. No one seems to pay them any attention and yet they reveal themselves to be particularly interesting due to their great diversity. Though we can imagine that it is always a question of the same typeface, a closer study shows that a number of alphabets co-exist. One common point: elementary, robust forms, that seem more to have been traced than drawn by a few industrial draughtsmen, eager to be able to compose names of streets, avenues and boulevards in the restricted space of a standardised enamelled plate (well almost, this is France after all!)
It is definitely not a question of smoothing out and unifying all of the drawings finishing with a slick and homogenous typeface! On the contrary, Damien Gautier wants these typefaces to conserve the disparity of the typographic forms that have been noted.
In an apparent logic of organisation and of design that somewhat amusedly reminds us of the method used by Adrian Frutiger for the Univers typeface, the different series of the Plaax conserve the independent designs in a certain number of details (accents, the specific forms of a few letters: f, g, j, k, r, t, y, etc.)
This typeface is composed of 20 styles that display the typographic wealth of this source of inspiration. “Plaax 1 – Sathonay”: very narrow characters; “Plaax 2 – Griffon” and “Plaax 3 – Pradel”: narrow characters; “Plaax 4 – Terme” and “Plaax 5 – Foch”: wide characters; “Plaax 6 – Ney”: extra-wide characters.
Each series (from 1 to 6) contains a number of weights. By activating the “Ligatures” function, a particular series of ligatures refer to the origin of this typeface…
Thanks to its many variants and its design that is rid of any outdated pastiche, this typeface reveals itself to have a large range of possible uses: press, publishing, signage, visual identity.
Uppercases
Small Capitals
Superiors/Inferiors
Ordinals
Discretionary Ligatures
This standard corresponds to the Standard set to which are added specific signs depending on each typeface (alternative signs, stylistic signs, etc.) The detail of the available characters for each typeface is presented in the typeface specimen that you can download from our website.
Salmanazar is a typeface which has its roots in nineteenth century French type design, and in particular, the specimen of Antique Warnery no.1, published in 1922. Originally intended to be used for the composition of titles (the smallest body size being 20pt), its undecided yet vigorous strokes have been updated for contemporary use, while retaining its typically strong details from the belle-époque typefaces. Indeed, Salmanazar has a distinctly crafted look, with its own unique characteristics such as its vertical proportions, and its increasingly unusual contrast in the grotesque landscape. Its asymmetrical counters, and slightly heavy weights impose a certain darkness and a particular flavor in continuous reading, bringing to mind American Gothics, such as Franklin Gothic or the German humanistic sans serif Ludwig. Industrial in style, this typeface features a range of 4 weights, along with their corresponding italics. Each weight reveals a subtly different behavior, and this makes it suitable for different purposes.
Lowercases
Standard Punctuation
Caps Punctuation
Proportional
Lining Figures & Currency (default)
Proportional Old Style Figures & Currency
Tabular Lining Figures & Currency
Tabular Old Style Figures & Currency
Prebuild & Automatic Fractions
Superiors/Inferiors
Nominators/Denominators
Ordinals
Mathematical Signs
Symbols
Standard Ligatures
Accented Uppercases
Accented Lowercases
Ornaments
SS01 (Arrows)
SS02 (ft)
ss03 (a)
This standard corresponds to a set of characters that respond to the Extended Latin standard. It allows for the composition of a large majority of Western European languages. To do this, signs have been added to the standard latin alphabet, either through use of diacritic signs, or through construction of specific signs. The Extended Latin standard does not contain specific Cyrillic or Greek characters. The detail of the characters available for each typeface is presented in the typeface specimen that you can download from our website.
The list of languages in which it is possible to compose is in the specimen.