Château de Villers-Cotterêts - Cité internationale de la langue française

The Château de Villers-Cotterêts was built in 1556 in the Hauts-de-France region, in the north of Paris (France). It has been for a long time an emblematic place of the French language, where King Francis the First decided in 1539, that French would replace Latin in legal and administrative acts of the country. The castle and the city of Villers-Cotterêts also are internationally known for having been the place of renowned writers such as Molière, Racine and Alexandre Dumas. In 2022, the Château de Villers-Cotterêts will be opened to the public for the first time. The Presidency of French Republic gave the mission to the Centre des Monuments Nationaux to lead a deep restoration project, in order to create in its walls the upcoming « Cité internationale de la langue française », as a tribute to its past. This new institution will be dedicated to creation and innovation around the french language, its evolution, spreading and uses in the contemporary world. Chevalvert designed the visual identity of the Château de Villers-Cotterêts around a typeface (Exclusive typeface, CVC, designed by Production Type, in this common project), which became a graphical key element of the logotype and of the whole visual system based on a frame. The logotype was designed as a mesh of capital letters. The set of greases gives a reflection to the logo, as well as the frame, which may be animated on digital versions of communication. The waves and reflects generated by the movement of the characters remind the French langage and its constant unpredictable evolution.