Georges Peignot

Georges Peignot
Georges Peignot, age 38
Occupation	type designer, Type founder, manager of the G. Peignot & Fils foundry
Years active	1896–1915
Known for	typefaces: Grasset, Cochin, Auriol, Garamont
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Georges Peignot (Paris, June 24, 1872 – Givenchy, September 28, 1915) was a French type designer, type founder and manager of the G. Peignot & Fils foundry until his death in the World War I. Father of four children (including poet Colette Peignot called Laure), he hoisted the G. Peignot & Fils foundry among most striking French typography companies of the twentieth century (an « elite house », according to a former French Prime Minister): in 17 years of practice, he created or launched prestigious fonts, including Grasset, Cochin and Garamont.

Born in 1872, Georges Peignot was the fourth child of eight. His father, Gustave Peignot (1839–1899), engineer graduated of Arts et Métiers school, was the head of a fixed spaces foundry (specialized in the fabrication of hand-set metal type to achieve letter-spacing) in Paris, created in 1842 by Pierre Leclerc and bought and directed by his mother, Clémentine Dupont de Vieux Pont (1815–1897), widow of Laurent Peignot.

Georges Peignot frequented unsuccessfully the Chaptal College in Paris, before attending an apprenticeship with his godfather, Émile Faconnet, master intaglio printer. In 1890 he was admitted to "Arts Déco" school. In 1891, he moved to Germany, first in Leipzig in the Schwinger foundry where he discovered the world of printing and learned punchcutting. In 1892, he was in Hamburg in the Gentzsch foundry where, with the son of the family, same age, he toured the services and workshops, continued to be passionate about types, and passed all his spare time admiring international typographic catalogs.