The French Modern of the nineteenth century, often called Didot after the famous French printing dynasty who popularized the style, is often the serif typeface of choice to communicate elegance and sophistication. Le Jeune, designed by Commercial Type partners Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz for Chris Dixon’s refresh of Vanity Fair, is a modern adapation of the idiom. Where the French Moderns typically feature soft teardrop forms, Le Jeune features sharp, round ball terminals more typical of British and American Moderns. To satisfy the needs of contemporary designers, Le Jeune comes in four optical sizes for use from huge headlines of 200 point and above, where contrast betwen thick and thin is at its most extreme, down to 6 point text, where robustness is needed. In the largest sizes the family comes in six weights, from a Light to a full-figured Black, while the text size omits the Light and Medium for a succinct total of four weights. Greg Gazdowicz has added a stencil version in each optical size, inspired by the famed Modern-style stencil letters found throughout France.
