Jean Francois Porchez

Retiro: An hispanic didot

Retiro is a daring interpretation of Spanish typography. Severe, austere and yet, full of life, Retiro is a vernacular version of Castilian and Andalusian in a typical Didot. Named after a lovely park in Madrid, Retiro started life as a a bespoke typeface designed to give a unique voice to the magazine Madriz. In 2006, the founder of Madriz was looking for a Didot for his new magazine. The Didot is the archetypal typeface used in high-end magazines. Retiro, based on Ambroise is a synthesis of these high contrast styles mixed with an Hispanic mind. Result is then, after 2-3 years of work, a typeface with countless variations – Retiro in 2009 included 470 glyphs – to establish typographic shades adapted to different sections and pages of the Madriz.

In 2014, it was necessary to further revise “the typeface before its launch at Typofonderie. In order to keep its originality, the unique weight was retained, but complemented with optical size variants to set highly contrasted headlines into various sizes, visually balanced. The Retiro Pro glyph set is available in 5 optical sizes and offers 1100 signs and variations we have refined to the extreme for several months. Via multiple OpenType features combined to infinity, the Retiro offer to your graphic projects a unique typographic identity, but never austere because “multiple” and full of life.

How to use Retiro optical sizes?

Each font provided in Retiro family is named according to the scale of body size: 16 pt, 24 pt, 38 pt, 64 pt and 96 pt. Of course, these names are referring to the body sizes used in typographic design. In the “glorious old days,” the letterpress period, it was customary to cut punches directly to the size at which typefaces would be used. The punchcutter had to visually adapt his design to the engraving size. The aim was to optimize the best contrast and general weight, but also to respect both design’s and reader’s needs. In Retiro’s case, intended for large titling sizes, it’s an adaptation of this ancient practice for our contemporary uses.

Although each font is named by a typographic point size, do not feel obliged to use this font at this precise size, but why not, in larger or smaller – without, of course setting it into 12 pt, a 96 pt font! It’s rather the concept of gradients that must be preserved in layouts, rather than strictly size numbers. Indeed, according to the context: printing technic, display, resolution, support, a 96pt font will not have the same effect set in 68 pt, 96 pt, or even on 240 pt. It’s up to the designer to select the right font size for his own designs.

Retiro: OpenType features

Retiro, a Full of life Hispanic Didot in 5 optical sizes

Retiro designed by Jean François Porchez is exclusively available at Typofonderie, in a unique weight in 5 optical sizes. Over the years, the team that worked on the Retiro has included Mathieu Réguer and Lucie Alvado. More than 1100 glyphs, including extended languages support, 4 sets of figures, various set of capitals, lowercases, superiors, ligatures, alternates, swashes, titling variants, stylistic sets, contextual alternates and ornaments.

Retiro: Availability of the new typeface family

The new Retiro OpenType fonts are available in our exclusive PRO version
Download the Retiro specimen in pdf format for full details of these Advanced typography functions.

→ € 55 by style
→ € 176 for the optical size family

Retiro: Typeface in use