École Estienne

The school was born of a proposal by the anthropologist and linguist Abel Hovelacque: in 1887 the Ville de Paris adopted a municipal professional school of graphic arts and industries, named after Robert Estienne, founder of the sixteenth-century dynasty of printers. It welcomed its first 108 pupils in 1889, boys of thirteen admitted by competitive examination, and only admitted young women in 1972.

It occupies 18 boulevard Auguste-Blanqui in the 13th arrondissement, near the Butte aux Cailles. A public school of the Éducation nationale jointly supervised with the Ville de Paris, it belongs with Boulle, Duperré and ENSAAMA to the conférence des écoles supérieures d’Arts appliqués de Paris.

Dedicated at first to printing, it has become the school of communication design and of the arts of the book while keeping the workshop tradition: linotype in 1905, digital press in 2005, digital CTP today. It offers DNMADe courses in animation, graphic design, book and digital design, and four level-7 DSAA prepared in two years, in digital creation, creative media, typographic design and scientific illustration.

All courses are selective, initial training is free, lifelong learning runs with GRETA CDMA. Open days began in 1972, the Semaine culturelle of 1986 became the Estiennales, and its benches carried Robert Doisneau, Cabu, Siné and the typographer Albert Boton.