My First Font: SILE Sans

The "[don't] work blindly" debate reminds me of Dave Farey's disarming comment when accused of plagiarism in making Cachet, something to the effect of: "I know I didn't copy that font because I had it right in front of me the whole time."  :->

Ah, I didn't know. Was it in reference to Chambord/Touraine (based so closely on Peignot as to trigger the formation of ATypI...) or Banco (concerning which Excoffon explicitly confessed)?

BTW for reference below are the relevant passages from Rault's Excoffon book (first in the original French, followed by my translation).


Chambord/Touraine:

Marcel Olive lui demande de dessiner un caractère typographique pour concurrencer un alphabet de la fonderie Deberny & Peignot, le Peignot, dessiné par Adolphe Mouron Cassandre : À l’époque, il faut bien avouer que je ne connaissais rigoureusement rien à la typographie. J’étais jeune ; j’ai voulu faire quelque chose de différent, et j’ai fait avec ce caractère, le Chambord, du « sous-Peignot ».

Marcel olive asks him to draw a typeface to compete with one of Deberny & Peignot’s alphabets, Peignot, drawn by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre: It must certainly be admitted that at the time I knew resolutely nothing about typography. I was young; I wanted to do something different, and I achieved it with the Chambord alphabet, a “sub-Peignot”.


Banco:

Nous apprenons que la fonderie Deberny & Peignot est en train de préparer un nouveau caractère de publicité dessiné par Jacno. Un article était paru dans une revue professionnelle avec la photo de Jacno en train de dessiner son caractère. Je vais être honnête : j’ai fait de l’espionnage industriel, j’ai pris ma loupe et j’ai scruté cette photo avec le plus de précision possible.

We learned that the Deberny & Peignot foundry was preparing a new advertising typeface by Jacno. An article with a photo showing Jacno drawing his alphabet had appeared in a trade magazine. I’m going to be honest: I carried out industrial spying – I took my magnifying glass and examined that photo as carefully as possible.

       

Trying to make this all of practical usefulness to Simon, I would say that to me it's a matter of intent and healthy skepticism: if you intend to make a real cultural contribution, and you don't assume that precedents are necessarily well-conceived, freely look at everything.