Guyot Headline Font Family

Guyot is a type family inspired by the work of the punchcutter François Guyot, who lived and worked in Antwerp during the sixteenth century. Ramiro Espinoza got acquainted with the work of Guyot while attending the Expert Class in Type Design at Antwerp’s Plantin Institute for Typography. Researching French and Flemish punchcutters, Espinoza soon realized that the work of the most important masters of the period had already been digitized. However, he found the work of lesser-known punchcutters like Guyot, though perhaps not of the same superior quality as the others, equally compelling. And so a digital Guyot seemed in order.

Espinoza decided early on that his Guyot was not going to be a facsimile typeface, but rather a modern interpretation aimed at the editorial market. He selected the most interesting elements from the Gros Canon and Ascendonica sizes and assembled them into a consistent family of contemporary detailing.

During his year at the Plantin Institute for Typography, Espinoza researched several more punchcutters from the seventeenth century. Details common to the types of that period—like an increased contrast and an enlarged terminal in the a—were applied to Guyot to give its look a more familiar and universal appeal. The Guyot family was eventually divided into three subfamilies: Headline, Text and Press to take full advantage of the possibilities of these optical ranges.

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