MONTREUIL

C.PRIEZ

BOULEVARD CHANZY

BOULEVARD CHANZY

BOULEVARD CHANZY

“Montreuil” is part experiment, part stalwart. It consists of these two opposing ideas with contrasting executions. First we have a Text family with the proportions, features, and quality one would expect from a world class type family.

There is enough flavor to set it apart from the tired classics, but not enough to inhibit legibility. {NOTE: careful treatment of lowercase a and t, with a subtle humanist flavor.} Second, we have an experimental Play counterpart consisting of a single style. It is a modular kit of parts ready for experimentation, and uniquely playful type setting possibilities.

→Montreuil is a city in France, and home to Julien Priéz—a (remarkable) graphic designer, type designer, and calligrapher. Before I could call him a friend, I was simply a huge fan of Julien, or “Boogy Paper” as he is known to many fans all over the world.

Early on in my education, I began the process of refining my ability to distinguish between two kinds of graphic designer: 1). The trend-followers, with a passing interest in graphic design, and 2). The trend-setting elite, who treat our profession as a calling, rather than a career. With zero hesitation, I knew in what category Boogy belonged.

During a trip to « Les Rencontres de Lure », a French typography conference that is extremely small and extremely French, I made extended my visit with a few days in Paris. It was there that I met Julien, his wife, and daughter for the first time.

Since then, we’ve only been able to see each other on two separate occasions [Portland and Guadalajara]—but it always feels like a reunion between brothers, or at the very least, very old friends.

A collaboration was too tempting to ignore, and we began to discuss what it could look like around 2020. ¶ After a few false starts, and watching with delight as he released his first typeface Boogy Brut with Bureau Brut, I desperately begged Julien to approach a grotesque.

Asking a calligrapher to forget humanist traditions is perhaps a fool’s errand, but I knew it could lead somewhere interesting and useful. Week after week, Julien presented ambitious plans for a massive family that incorporated his previous modular experiments with additional sub-families to tie everything together.

And week after week, I would dismantle his proposals, trying to get the center of the idea, and ruthlessly eliminate everything that wasn’t absolutely essential. This process was difficult, but necessary to distill our visions into a singular and potent concept.

The resulting family is Montreuil (pronounced “mon-TROY”), a unique sans family that can handle every job from logotype to encyclopedia.

Like many of the fonts at Ohno, it strives to bring something new to the table to rightfully exist in a sea of other contributions to the same genre. And like Julien, it does so with a great deal of skill, and a whole lot of love.

Montreuil was drawn between 2010 and 2025 by Julien Priez, James Edmondson, Colin M. Ford, and Jamie Otelsberg, in France, Germany, and The United States.

Thank you for trusting us Julien. We hope to see you soon, and we can’t wait to see what you draw next. Sincerely, James and the rest of your friends at Ohno.

Montreuil consists of seven weights, with italics, and the bonus “Play” style for a total of fifteen styles to amuse, confuse, and diffuse every typographic conundrum.

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