Soupirs
Smeltery · Fanny Garcia & Jack Usine · 2006
An ornamental stencil family drawn from 310 decorative ventilation grilles collected from the streets of Bordeaux, redesigned into a cohesive typographic system across 5 styles.
About
Fanny Garcia and Jack Usine documented 1,489 decorative soupiraux from Bordeaux's building façades before selecting 310 to form this family. The result is an eclectic catalogue of vernacular ironwork forms, repurposed as a stencil font system rooted in a specific architectural and geographic tradition. Five styles carry the range of ornamental patterns found across the collection.
Classification
Soupirs is an ornamental stencil family drawn from decorative architectural ventilation grilles found in Bordeaux, placing it firmly in the display category as a vernacular-derived, non-alphabetic or decorative typeface.