Fonts à la française!

A couple of weeks ago I came home from a rather lovely holiday in Nice, South of France. We had a super-handy apartment right on the promenade, and the weather was much nicer than expected for early October. Most importantly, copious amounts of red wine, cheese and bread were eaten. C'est la vie!

I love looking at the different styles of signage when you're on holiday. From hand painted shop signs tucked away down little alleys, to neon signs blinking down the main street. They always seem to look more interesting, colourful and personable to the company/people who own the business than the usual signs we see on every British high street. 

During our walks throughout the Old & New town of Nice, I tried to snap some of my favourite examples of signage on the shops, restaurants and official buildings. 

It wasn't too clear at the time, but looking back at the photos below there seem to be two distinct 'french' styles in Nice. 

1. The first style is quite thin, italic, cursive, in a solid colour - think Monotype Corvosia. 

2. The second, and more prominent style uses block capitals and wide kerning with a solid shadow, usually white or lighter than the font colour. 

Across all examples there appears to be a common family of colours used which are all warm/earthly: red, burgandy, brown, cream, black, yellow...

So, if you're working on a design project which requires a french touch, here are some fonts which might help you out: 

Click to download!

Thanks for reading, Melissa x

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