The engraver Jean Jannon ranks among the significant representatives of French typography of the first half of the 17th century. He was born in 1580, apparently in Switzerland. He trained as punch-cutter in Paris. From 1610 he worked in the printing office of the Calvinist Academy in Sedan, where he was awarded the title "Imprimeur de son Excellence et de l'Academie Sédanoise". He began working on his own alphabet in 1615, so that he would not have to order type for his printing office from Paris, Holland and Germany, which at that time was rather difficult. The other reason was that not only the existing type faces, but also the respective punches were rapidly wearing out. Their restoration was extremely painstaking, not to mention the fact that the result would have been just a poor shadow of the original elegance. Thus a new type face came into existence, standing on a traditional basis, but with a life-giving sparkle from its creator. In 1621 Jannon published a Roman type face and italics, derived from the shapes of Garamond's type faces. As late as the start of the 20th century Jannon's type face was mistakenly called Garamond, because it looked like that type face at first sight. Jannon's Early Baroque Roman type face, however, differs from Garamond in contrast and in having grander forms. Jannon's italics rank among the most successful italics of all time – they are brilliantly cut and elegant.

JANNON TEXT MODERNE (Dec. 5. 2001)
Some earlier released fonts are undergoing later development. If at Regent Pro was necessary to remove certain aesthetical shortcomings, then the “Text Moderne” version of Jannon fills remarkable gap within otherwise extensive typeface family. There was excessive proportional difference between Jannon and its Text version – the x-height was either too low or too high. The middle proportion with a robust and quiet appearance was missing.
Isn’t it a good opportunity to restore more of Jannon’s innovative idea? Jannon straightens the axe of shadows, removes curves where they can be easily replaced with upright lines. He is not affraid of putting entirely static elements into a very dynamic set of Antiqua, which is apparent from most of upper-case letters. Newly and daringly he draws the italic with uneven slant angle. Our previous digital transcription, however, transfers also such Jannon’s irregularities like significantly higher lower-case z in italics (probably a typesetter’s mistake, but lovely), slight extension of middle part of vertical stems or uneven darkness of letters. In other words, it was too beautiful typeface concentrated rather on its origin, but less to contemporary needs.
Jannon Text Moderne solves all the weaknesses mentioned above: hairlines are thickened and the x-height is slightly smaller than of Jannon Text. For the price of declining Jannon’s crispness we have obtained something solid and functional. Through extensive testing we have tuned up a consistent behavior of the typeface even for a transparent paper at 600 dpi – the cheapest small publisher’s prepress method. After a crystalic and rather cooler Jannon’s attitude, we have brought our alphabet closer to late baroque, but also closer to the contemporary reader’s eye. Jannon Text Moderne is a typical body type face consisting of four basic designs, four Small Caps and Swash Italics. Naturally, old style (hanging) figures, numerous ligatures and a set of baroque ornaments are supplied along. It is released as an alternative to other post-garamondian revivals, suitable for every sort of literature and makes largest books easier for reading.