WTF Nouveau Details

WTF Nouveau Family

Variable Font
8 Weights
Regular & Oblique

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Hairline

Hairline Oblique

Thin Oblique

Thin

Extra Light

Extra Light Oblique

Light Oblique

Light

Book

Book Oblique

Semibold Oblique

Semibold

Bold

Bold Oblique

Black Oblique

Black

Light

The Franco-German art dealer and publisher Siegfried Bing played a key role in publicizing the style. In 1891, he founded a magazine devoted to the art of Japan, which helped publicize Japonism in Europe. In 1892, he organized an exhibit of seven artists, among them Pierre Bonnard, Félix Vallotton, Édouard Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Eugène Grasset, which included both modern painting and decorative work. This exhibition was shown at the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1895. In the same year, Bing opened a new gallery at 22 rue de Provence in Paris, the Maison de l’Art Nouveau, devoted to new works in both the fine and decorative arts. The interior and furniture of the gallery were designed by the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau architecture. The Maison de l’Art Nouveau showed paintings by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Toulouse-Lautrec, glass from Louis Comfort Tiffany and Émile Gallé, jewellery by René Lalique, and posters by Aubrey Beardsley. The works shown there were not at all uniform in style. Bing wrote in 1902, “Art Nouveau, at the time of its creation, did not aspire in any way to have the honor of becoming a generic term. It was simply the name of a house opened as a rallying point for all the young and ardent artists impatient to show the modernity of their tendencies.”

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Book

The Paris 1900 Exposition universelle marked the high point of Art Nouveau. Between April and November 1900, it attracted nearly fifty million visitors from around the world, and showcased the architecture, design, glassware, furniture and decorative objects of the style. The architecture of the Exposition was often a mixture of Art Nouveau and Beaux-Arts architecture: the main exhibit hall, the Grand Palais had a Beaux-Arts façade completely unrelated to the spectacular Art Nouveau stairway and exhibit hall in the interior. French designers all made special works for the Exhibition: Lalique crystal and jewellery; jewellery by Henri Vever and Georges Fouquet; Daum glass; the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres in porcelain; ceramics by Alexandre Bigot; sculpted glass lamps and vases by Émile Gallé; furniture by Édouard Colonna and Louis Majorelle; and many other prominent arts and crafts firms. At the 1900 Paris Exposition, Siegfried Bing presented a pavilion called Art Nouveau Bing, which featured six different interiors entirely decorated in the Style. Prize winners and participants included Alphonse Mucha, who made murals for the pavilion of Bosnia-Herzegovina and designed the menu for the restaurant of the pavilion; the decorators and designers Bruno Paul and Bruno Möhring from Berlin; Carlo Bugatti from Turin.

Book

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Following the 1900 Exposition, the capital of Art Nouveau was Paris. The most extravagant residences in the style were built by Jules Lavirotte, who entirely covered the façades with ceramic sculptural decoration. The most flamboyant example is the Lavirotte Building, at 29, avenue Rapp (1901). Office buildings and department stores featured high courtyards covered with stained glass cupolas and ceramic decoration. The style was particularly popular in restaurants and cafés, including Maxim’s at 3, rue Royale, and Le Train bleu at the Gare de Lyon (1900). The status of Paris attracted foreign artists to the city. The Swiss-born artist Eugène Grasset was one of the first creators of French Art Nouveau posters. He helped decorate the famous cabaret Le Chat Noir in 1885, made his first posters for the Fêtes de Paris and a celebrated poster of Sarah Bernhardt in 1890. In Paris, he taught at the Guérin school of art (École normale d’enseignement du dessin), where his students included Augusto Giacometti and Paul Berthon. Swiss-born Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen created the famous poster for the Paris cabaret Le Chat noir in 1896. The Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) arrived in Paris in 1888, and in 1895, made a poster for actress Sarah Bernhardt in the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou in Théâtre de la Renaissance. The success of this poster led to a contract to produce posters for six more plays by Bernhardt.

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Paul Hankar was another pioneer of Brussels’ Art Nouveau. His house was completed in 1903, the same year as Horta's Hôtel Tassel, and featured sgraffiti murals on the facade. Hankar was influenced by both Viollet-le-Duc and the ideas of the English Arts and Crafts movement. His conception idea was to bring together decorative and fine arts in a coherent whole. He commissioned the sculptor Alfred Crick and the painter Adolphe Crespin to decorate the facades of houses with their work. The most striking example was the house and studio built for the artist Albert Ciamberlani at 48, rue Defacqz/Defacqzstraat in Brussels, for which he created an exuberant facade covered with sgraffito murals with painted figures and ornament, recreating the decorative architecture of the Quattrocento, or 15th-century Italy. Hankar died in 1901, when his work was just receiving recognition. Gustave Strauven was Horta's assistant, before he started his own practice at age 21. His most famous work is the Maison Saint Cyr on Ambiorix Square in Brussels. Just four meters wide, it is decorated from top to bottom with curving ornament, in a virtually Art Nouveau-Baroque style. Other important Art Nouveau artists from Belgium included the architect and designer Henry van de Velde, though the most important part of his career was spent in Germany; he strongly influenced the decoration of the Jugendstil. Belgian designers took advantage of an abundant supply of ivory.

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Alternate Characters

G→G
J→J
BPR→BPR
Ww→Ww
a→a
y→y
&→&
4→4

Opentype Features

Lining Figures 0123456789
Fractions 1⁄8 Cup 37⁄264 in
Subscript H2O C6H12O6
Superscript x2 + y3 = z5
Case-sensitive Forms 1–9 (ID)

Variable Font

Weight & Italic Axes

Variable fonts allow you to find that perfect weight for every context. On the web, depending on how many styles you utilize, they also drastically reduce font loading times since you only require one font file.

FRANCIS

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Typeface Information

While they’re incredibly fun to look at from a historical perspective, Art Nouveau typefaces tend to be heavy handed and almost all of them feel very dated or even alien. However, a number of typography characteristics from the era have an undeniable charm and rather unique flow to them. WTF Nouveau is an attempt to wrangle that grace into something with broader utility. The alternate character palette allows you to dial up or down the amount of Art Nouveau to get the right balance for each application.

16 Styles:

Hairline, Hairline Oblique, Thin, Thin Oblique, Extra Light, Extra Light Oblique, Light, Light Oblique, Book, Book Oblique, Semibold, Semibold Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique, Black, Black Oblique

Designed in 2022 by Adrian Kimball

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