In 1846, Lyonnais printer, Louis Perrin commissioned founder Francisque Rey to engrave a series of capitals inspired by monumental roman inscriptions. They would go on to be used in the composition of work on the Antique inscriptions of Lyon, by Alphonse de Boissieu. In 1855, the typeface was completed by a number of lowercase fonts; certain bodies came from the stocks of Rey, others were drawn by Perrin himself. His “Augustaux”, one of the first “revivals” in the history of typography, became rapidly successful, launching the “Renouveau Elzévirien” (Old-style Renewal) movement. With Louize, Matthieu Cortat provides a contemporary reinterpretation of the Augustaux. It retains a wise and serene tone, the grey of clear text, the soft roundness of the curves. Louize is discreet, calm, harmonious.
Available in three weights, Louize has a number of small capitals (for the roman styles) and ornamental capitals (for the italics).

For use in titles, Louize is available in a Display version. This sharp and clear variant is inspired by letters engraved in stone. It brings a new contemporary freshness to this timeless typeface. The Display variants also offer, in the roman styles, a series of ligatures inspired by that of concise engravings.

Helvetius is a reinterpretation by Matthieu Cortat of a font used in a 1778 edition of De l’homme (On Man) by french enlightenment philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvetius. The title page of this book states that it has been printed in london. As for many of its kind, it’s probably a fake adress, often used by French publishers of that time to get rid of censorship. The type itself is clearly influenced by the style of Fournier Le Jeune.
Its italic, though, is definitely playful, Those features are kept in the classical yet sensitive digital revival. Slightly condensed, with a large x-height and two extra weights, it fits perfectly any jobing work in search of accuracy, classicism, but personnality and warmth as well.
A typographical “petite robe noire” which makes parisian women classy even for everiday life.

The Chrysaora typeface was originally commissioned by the architects of group8 and the artist John Armleder, for a piece entitled, “Les Plates-formes de la porte dorée”, inspired by the story of the Golden door. It is part of the Parisian landscape, echoing the engravings made by the great names of the wall of the Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration, originally the Museum of the Colonies, a showroom for French colonialism. Chrysaora revisits the general features of these engravings, solely in capitals, and is used to engrave texts presented in John Armleder's work. Chrysaor (literally “golden sword”) was the son of Poseidon and Medusa, the brother of Pegasus. His mother was transformed into a gorgon by the goddess Athena as punishment for having desecrated her temple. A statue of Athena, incarnating a triumphant France, decorates the Palais de la Porte dorée.
The Chrysaora typeface is available in three weights, and can be used to compose more than 105 languages, including Vietnamese with its many accented characters. It also contains numerous ligatures.

With the Henry typeface, Matthieu Cortat provides a personal interpretation of the Deberny & Peignot foundry's Garamond, engraved by Henri Parmentier between 1914 and 1926 under the direction of Georges Peignot.
Its authors sought to recover the grace of the typefaces of Claude Garamont, while at the same time taking into account the reality of the modern paper industry, that uses wood based papers and not cloth based ones, as was the case in the 16th century. Henry is based on medium type sizes (9 to 14) of Parmentier's engraving. It is a quite slim Garalde, a little narrow, lean and slender. We feel an inspiration that is almost “Art Nouveau” in its z that leans towards the left, its winding a and J, the lower loop of its heavily curved t, the ample loop of its Q… These features are still visible in the italic with its changing rhythm and it s joyous ligatures.
Henry is a delicate typeface. Its design precise if not a little dated.

Anacharsis​ is a modernist geometrical lineal, that follows in the footsteps of the Futura, Simplex or Semplicità typefaces. Its design and proportions are based on the gothic Rotunda letters, round, soft and meridional, like those used in the 14th and 15th centuries in southern Europe.
A solid, black character, it possesses two series of alternative signs: certain capital letters that recapture traces of the “turned” letters (​E F H I J M N P S T V W Y) of medieval copyists; for the lowercase letters, archaic forms may be called upon (a​ d h l s v w y). These variants, accessible through OpenType functions, are deactivated in the default settings. Anacharsis can in this way be used as a classic and elegant lineal.
Anacharsis is available in regular, bold and black versions with their corresponding italics.

The Stuart typeface possesses the general forms and proportions of a 15th century Venetian kind. Matthieu Cortat designed it with a calligraphic reference in mind giving it a classic, regular sobriety. Its general appearance is nonetheless resolutely contemporary. Its italic is inspired by the first italics of Alde Manuce and Francesco Griffo: barely slanted, its axis of inclination varies only slightly. Stuart is available in three weights, along with their corresponding italics.
A bookish body type, it is available in a number of optical bodies for increased legibility. Stuart Titling (for sizes larger than 14 points) is narrower, its downstrokes and upstrokes are more stated. As for Stuart Text it suits mid sized bodies between 9 and 14 points. Stuart Caption, larger and of solid build, is for use with bodies of 9 points and under.

Battling is a geometrical lineal, inspired by the “Universals” that were distributed by the Dutreix foundry in Limoges in the 1930s, and that were probably intended to compete with the Europe (the French name given to Paul Renner's Futura) in the field of the “modernist” sans serifs. Battling is a robust typeface that conserves the awkwardness of its original model. It possesses a sort of “adolescent vigour”, frustrated and rowdy.
Matthieu Cortat has produced Battling in four weights (light, regular, medium, bold) with their corresponding italics. In medium and bold, it avails of a series of uppercase titling characters, decorated with a thin thread of light. It also possesses a series of roman numerals in small capitals.

For the Petit Serif typeface, Matthieu Cortat was inspired by lettering created by Percy J. Delf Smith for the building located at 55 Broadway, s.W. 1, London, that he reproduced in his book, “Civic and Memorial Lettering*.
This typeface is a lineal of monumental roman capitals with classical proportions, that possesses very slight serifs due to the use of brushes in its creation. A character used for titles and shopfronts, it does not possess a lowercase, but is available in Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. The letters A and I have variants available for Basque.
Percy J. Delf smith R.D.I., ​Civic and Memorial Lettering, Adam & Charles Black, London, 1946.

After the success of Louize and Louize Display, Matthieu Cortat completes the elegant Louize Family with Louize Display Condensed available in three weights: Regular, Medium and Bold.
In 1846, Lyonnese printer, Louis Perrin commissioned founder Francisque Rey to cut a series of capitals inspired by monumental roman inscriptions. They have been used to compose “Les Inscriptions antiques de Lyon”, a book by Alphonse de Boissieu. In 1855, the typeface was completed by series of lowercase, some coming from the printshop of Rey, others designed by Perrin himself. His “Augustaux”, one of the first “revivals” in the history of typography, became rapidly successful, launching the “Renouveau Elzévirien” movement.

With Louize Family, Matthieu Cortat provides a contemporary reinterpretation of the Augustaux. It retains a wise and serene tone, a clear grey of text, the soft roundness of the curves. Louize is discreet, calm, harmonious.

For use in titles, Louize is available in a Display version. This sharp and clear variant is inspired by letters carved in stone. It brings a new contemporary freshness to this timeless typeface. The Display variants also offer, in the roman styles, a series of ligatures inspired by stone cutters traditions. Those features also appear in the condensed cuts.

Yorick is based on a monospace typewriter font (model 3402U) found in the Campionario caratteri e fregi tipografici (specimen book) of the Nebiolo typefoundry, dated 1920 – but the font might probably be older. The source is a slab serif form very common in typewriter fonts (Pica, according to Olivetti naming system) with a little touch of classical flavour from the Imperial style (i.e. with thick and thin contrasts). Start in 2016, Yorick keeps the essence of the original design, and avoid to make it look too digital or constructed. It’s a gentle industrial font: a font of engineers in Oxford shirt and tweed suits, not in white blouse. A precision tool with eleganza torinese, not showing off. Its italic is a proper one, not a slanted roman. It comes in a simple family of 4 styles, but with a large character set which includes bot Latin and Cyrillic scripts — each completed by localised alternates for Romanian, Moldovan, Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian.

Humanist Sans have sometimes a tendency to be over-roundish, slender, mannered,
mimicking the calligraphy. With Cosimo, Matthieu Cortat proposes a font in the spirit of Gill Sans, with strong shoulders, few contrast, a certain darkness in print, which gives it strength and serenity. Contrarily to many font of this style, its italic remains simple and quiet. With its clear and defined range of weights it possesses a versatility which makes it suitable for many purposes, book, titling, magazines, websites…
Nice light, straightforward Regular, virile Bold and peppy Black, each weight has a slightly different personality, but they match each others, making Cosimo a well grounded font for every-day use as well as dressed-up layouts.

Matthieu Cortat created Basetica for the studio GVA (Geneva), in the context of the Open Switzerland project, on the occasion of its attachment to the Base group, bringing together 3 agencies in Europe (Brussels) and America (New York). GVA wished to show its attachment to “Swiss Graphic Design” and what it carries in terms of quality, precision and rigour, while at the same time presenting a Switzerland quite different to the usual stereotypes that one can imagine.
Basetica is then, a "contemporary Helvetica", open and with no frills. Raw at times, but always clean and discreet, it revisits the International Swiss Style” with a certain irony.