As a teenager growing up on the French Riviera, Lucas Teyssier spent his spare time graffiting the walls of Toulon “to improve its appearance”. Creating tags sparked his interest in graphic design. He became fascinated by the retro typefaces and illustrations still apparent on the walls and shopfronts. It gave him a taste for the French graphic design and typography of the past.

“We’ve had some amazing poster designers, like Cassandre, Villemot and Savignac. I’m fascinated by their legacy and I try to reference them in my work.” Teyssier studied graphic design in Montpellier where he discovered the typography of Herb Lubalin and Roger Excoffon, whose font creations including Mistral, Choc, Banco and Calypso defined the late 20th century visual aesthetic in France.

“With graffiti, you study lettering before typography. And because I was deforming letters to create words then logos, that introduced me to typography,” says the now 32-year-old. “I find typography very complex. The construction and proportions are almost mathematical, whereas the letterforms I used in graffiti break free of any constraints. It’s more liberating.”

A friend told him about a group of sign painters from the south of France who founded a collective in Paris called 6Lettres in 2013. Teyssier visited Paris to check out their work. It convinced him to make this his profession.