In the early 1970s, the RATP (Autonome des Transports Parisiens) undertook a program to harmonize the metro’s corporate identity by replacing the many different fonts then in use with a unified, standard typeface. The font eventually chosen, “Métro Alphabet,” was developed by the Swiss typeface designer Adrian Frutiger as a special, modified version of his Univers typeface. Installed throughout the network between 1973 and 1994, Métro Alphabet became the most widespread font used on the system and still remains in dozens of stations.
By the early 1990s, the RATP had decided to update its signage, and selected a variant of the Helvetica typeface, Neue Helvetica, the first metro typeface to employ upper and lower case letters. It was only used in a handful of stations, before the RATP changed course and commissioned French typeface designer Jean-Francois Porchez to create an exclusive font for the system. Porchez’s font, called Parisine was initially used for the station signs in 1997. Since then, it has been adopted throughout the system and has increasingly replaced the remaining Frutiger signage.
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