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Prix Charles Peignot

Every four or five years or so, ATypI awards the Prix Charles Peignot for excellence in type design to a designer under the age of thirty-five who has made an oustanding contribution to type design.

The recipient is chosen by a committee of ATypI members appointed by the ATypI board. Past recipients of the come from a variety of countries and backgrounds; what they have in common is their interest and ability in the craft of typeface design. They representative some of the best of their generation of type designers.

The prize is named after ATypI founder Charles Peignot, who was the organization’s first president from 1957 to 1973.

Past recipients of the Prix Charles Peignot are:

Claude Mediavilla

Claude Mediavilla was born in the South of France into a family of Spanish origin. From 1965 to 1971, he studied calligraphy, paleography and painting at the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse, France. In 1975 he opened his own design studio in Paris, executing works of typography and calligraphy for advertising agencies, official organisations, and private companies. During all his career he has continued teaching calligraphy in France, Germany, Korea, Hamburg, USA, Belgium and the Netherlands. The spearhead of the calligraphic renaissance in France, he is the author of numerous articles and books that have found their place as references, both for the professional and the amateur. Claude Mediavilla is also known for the original light he brought to bear on the relationship between calligraphy and abstract art. This original approach can be found in his original paintings and works that are regularly exhibited around the world.

Claude Mediavilla received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1982.

Jovica Veljović

Jovica was born 1954 in Suvi Do, Serbia and Montenegro. He received his master’s degree in calligraphy and lettering at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He now lives in Germany, teaches type design and calligraphy at the Fachhochschule Hamburg, and teaches workshops throughout Europe and United States. He has designed three typefaces for the International Typeface Corporation: ITC Veljovic, ITC Esprit and ITC Gamma, and for Adobe Systems Ex Ponto, a Multiple Master typeface, as well as two OpenType families, Silentium Pro and Sava Pro. 1998 he adapted and extended Tiemann Antiqua for Die Zeit. He has served as a consultant on Cyrillic type designs for Apple, Linotype and URW. His work has been published in Letter Arts Review, Print, and Hamburger Satzspiegel.

Jovica Veljović received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1985.

Petr van Blokland

Born in Gouda, The Netherlands, in 1956, Petr van Blokland graduated Cum Laude from the graphic arts program at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague. He has been a freelance designer since 1980. He specializes in systematic design — typically building directories, forms systems, corporate identity programs, etc. He has taught graphic design, typography, and type design for many years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and at the Academy of Fine Arts, Arnhem. His typefaces include Proforma and Productus, available from The Font Bureau.

Petr van Blokland received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1988.

Robert Slimbach

Robert Slimbach, who joined Adobe in 1987, began working seriously on type and calligraphy four years earlier in the type drawing department of Autologic in Newbury Park, California. Since then, he has concentrated primarily on designing text faces for digital technology, drawing inspiration from classical sources. He has designed typefaces for the International Typeface Corporation (ITC Giovanni, ITC Slimbach) as well as the Adobe Originals families Caflisch Script, Cronos, Adobe Garamond, Adobe Jenson, Kepler, Minion, Poetica, Sanvito, Utopia, and Myriad (co-designed with Carol Twombly). In the recent years, Robert has been pushing the technological boundaries of OpenType format by extending and reworking his former designs, and by designing new typefaces that include Warnock Pro, Brioso Pro, Garamond Premier Pro, and Arno Pro.

Robert Slimbach received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1991.

Carol Twombly

During her childhood in New England, Carol spent much of her time exploring various artistic disciplines. Settling on sculpture, Carol followed her architect brother to Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Once there, however, she decided that graphic design would be a more practical course of study. After graduation from RISD Carol accepted an invitation from Charles Bigelow to join newly formed digital typography M.Sc. program at Stanford University. After graduation, she continued to work for the Bigelow & Holmes studio for the next four years, and 1988 she became a full-time type designer in the Adobe Originals program. During her nine years with Adobe, Carol has designed a number of very popular text and display typefaces. Designs like Trajan, Charlemagne, Lithos, and Adobe Caslon are inspired by classic letterforms of the past — from early Greek inscriptions, circa 400 B.C., to William Caslon’s typefaces of the 1700s. Designs like Viva and Nueva explore new territory while maintaining traditional roots. Carol’s other artistic pursuits include basketweaving, drawing, painting, and jewelry making.

Carol Twombly received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1994.

Jean François Porchez

Jean François Porchez was trained as a graphic designer and while working as a type director, created typefaces for Le Monde and the Paris métro. He designs typefaces for clients, such as The Baltimore Sun, Beyoncé, Croisieres Costa, France Telecom, Peugeot, Renault, and distributes his retail fonts through www.typofonderie.com. He is currently President of ATypI (2004–07), teaches type design at Reading University, and conducts type workshops around the world. His typefaces Angie and Apolline were prize-winning entries in the Morisawa typeface competition. His typeface Costa received a certificate of excellence in type design at the TDC2 2000 competition. His typefaces were also prize-winning entries in the ATypI Bukva:raz competition (2001) and won a Creative Review Type Award (2006).

Jean François Porchez received the Prix Charles Peignot in 1998.

Jonathan Hoefler

Jonathan Hoefler is a typeface designer and an armchair type historian who specializes in the design of original typefaces. He is president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a New York-based digital type foundry. Named one of the forty most influential designers in America by I.D. Magazine, Hoefler’s publishing work includes award-winning original typeface designs for Rolling Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Esquire; his institutional clients range from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to the rock band They Might Be Giants. Perhaps his best known work is the Hoefler Text family of typefaces, designed for Apple Computer and now appearing everywhere as part of the Macintosh operating system. Hoefler’s work has been exhibited internationally, and is included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (Smithsonian Institution) in New York. The collaboration of Hoefler with his business partner Tobias Frere-Jones has earned them profiles in The New York Times, Time, and Esquire.

Jonathan Hoefler received the Prix Charles Peignot in 2002.

Christian Schwartz

Christian Schwartz was born in 1977 and grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999 with a degree in Communication Design, and then spent 3 months as the in-house type designer at MetaDesign Berlin. After a year spent at The Font Bureau, he moved to New York and established Orange Italic with Chicago-based designer Dino Sanchez. The extensive Guardian Egyptian family for the Guardian newspaper’s dramatic relaunch in 2005—developed with Paul Barnes—won a black pencil from D&AD in 2006, while his work with Erik Spiekermann on Deutsche Bahn was given a gold medal by the German Design Council in 2007. Christian also frequently collaborates with Roger Black. Since his first published typeface at age fourteen, Christian has worked on or created twenty-six typeface families for display and text setting (as of 2007).

Christian Schwartz received the Prix Charles Peignot in 2007.

Alexandra Korolkova

Alexandra Korolkova, born in 1984, is a Russian type designer who has successfully combined novel and interesting Cyrillic and Latin typeface design. She studied type design under Alexander Tarbeev at the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, and later worked closely with the late Vladimir Yefimov, the long-time type director at ParaType. At twenty-five, she became head of ParaType’s design department, and, following Vladimir’s death, she succeeded him in the role of ParaType’s type director in February 2012. Alexandra released a number of typefaces on her own, including Leksa, Leksa Sans, Circe, and Kiddy Kitty. She was the leading designer of PT Sans and PT Serif, the ambitious pan-Cyrillic project conducted by ParaType with the support of the Russian government. She also collaborates with the designers who submit their fonts to be published by ParaType, and reviews their work. Since 2006, Alexandra has has been teaching type design in Moscow. In 2007, she published Russian-language book Живая Типографика (“Live Typography”).

Alexandra Korolkova received the Prix Charles Peignot in 2013.

David Jonathan Ross

David Jonathan Ross draws letters of all shapes and sizes for custom and retail typeface designs. A native of Los Angeles, he began drawing typefaces at Hampshire College and in 2007 joined the Font Bureau, where he honed his Bézier-wrangling skills. Now he publishes visually imaginative and technically advanced designs at his own foundry, including Fit, Bungee, Gimlet, and Input. You’ll find him in Western Massachusetts with his partner Emily and their two dogs, Sophie and Lily.

David Jonathan Ross received the Prix Charles Peignot in 2018.