We take a look back at Romie with Margot Lévêque, as she reflects on the serif’s long-awaited update

Five years after its original release, French type designer and strategist Margot Lévêque has announced an update of her beloved typeface, Romie. The new version sees ‘Romie Regular’ completely reworked, with the addition of three more styles; Medium, Bold and Black. Her favourite feature of the family is the addition of a mythical and large ligature set, “I’ve been asked for it so much since 2017,” she points out, “crazy.” The original iteration of the typeface began in 2017, with a young Lévêque as a student undertaking her Master’s Degree in Type Design and Art Direction. Originally, she had not begun the course with the goal to go into type. Rather, she had aspired to become a better graphic designer as she reveals “at this time I didn't want to be a type designer – it’s way too hard! But in truth,” she continues, “it all started by coincidence.” “One day, in the middle of a calligraphy class with Julien Priez, after having drawn a lot of letters with my pencil, I drew this serif. “So as you can see here, someone drew a hammer!” said (loudly) my master’s supervisor, Jean François Porchez. He laughed so hard! As he impressed me a lot, there was no way to continue with this hammering serif. But fortunately, my classmate (cc Baptiste Bernazeau) told me: “you’re kidding! It’s so cool, keep going!” I listened a lot to Baptiste because he always had an avant-garde and offbeat eye for everything. I decided to vectorise it and that’s how Romie was born. Thanks Baptiste!”