Initially Jean François made drawings modelled after his own calligraphy. They were done at a very small size on tracing paper (2 cm high for the capitals) to preserve the irregularity of human handwriting. Besides emphasising the horizontal parts of the letter forms, the serifs were designed asymmetrically to reinforce the rhythm of the writing. The final drawings were produced at a large size (10 cm high for the capitals) to allow for subtle optimisation of specific details.

Influenced by various concepts for an ideal italic by Van Krimpen, Gill, etc. Apolline italic was designed at 8° degrees. Although the structure of the letterforms were informed by chancery scripts, the italic has full serifs like the roman. Very narrow and fluid, its unique design creates a good contrast when used in combination with its upright counterparts. Thanks to the presence of the serifs similar to roman typefaces it sets very neatly in large sizes.

In 1993, the next step was digitising the drawings with _Ikarus_ (the pre-Bézier-curves era) to create the final roman and italic fonts. In 1995 when the family was expanded to six series the same method was used, this time with _Fontographer_. This was necessary for correcting a few problems caused by the conversion to Bézier outlines, and to add intermediate weights. A new additional _book_ weight was created specifically to be used in combination with the _regular_ to maintain a consistent typographic grey value down to the smallest type sizes.