Excoffon was not only a graphic designer, but even more a typographer and type designer. Studied law in Aix-en-Provence, but later painting in Paris. He worked as an art director of the Marseilles type foundry ‘Olive’. He opened his own studio in 1947 and founded with others the advertising agency U&O (Urbi et Orbi) in 1957. His typeface ‘Nord’ grew out to be the most famous logotype for Air France. According to Henrion he was a very elegant man: “His elegance found constant expression in the line, drawn by pencil or more often brush, to convey a kind of visual shorthand to depict flight, fashion, fowl, figure or fancy, just like the flowing precision of the many typefaces he created: Mistral (1953), Choc (1955), Calypso (1958) and Antique Olive (1962- 1966). He was the only western designer to excel in the Chinese brush stroke technique”. In 1968 he made the designs for the Winter Olympics of Grenoble. He started his agency Excoffon Conseil in 1972.