Essonnes
JTD Type · 2011
A sixteen-style Didone system spanning three optical sizes, rooted in the eccentric forms of Pierre Didot's 1819 type and designed to make high-contrast serifs workable from text to headline.
About
Drawn from the eccentric letterforms of Pierre Didot's 1819 type, Essonnes extends the Didone tradition into a genuinely optical family where Text, Display and Headline cuts are each designed from scratch rather than derived by simple contrast adjustment. Distinctive stylistic sets restore Didot's unconventional lowercase g, s and y treatments, available as alternates rather than defaults. The family runs to sixteen individual styles across its three optical sizes, covering Thin through Bold with matching italics throughout.
Classification
Essonnes is a high-contrast serif with vertical stress, hairline serifs and extreme thick-to-thin contrast, placing it firmly in the Didone tradition. The foundry explicitly references Pierre Didot's 1819 type as the primary historical source.