Futura (typeface)
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Futura is a
geometric sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...
designed by
Paul Renner Paul Friedrich August Renner (9 August 1878 – 25 April 1956) was a German typeface designer, author, and founder of the Master School for Germany's Printers in Munich. In 1927, he designed the Futura typeface, which became one of the most ...
and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the
New Frankfurt New Frankfurt (German: ''Neues Frankfurt'') was an affordable public housing program in Frankfurt started in 1925 and completed in 1930. It was also the name of the accompanying magazine that was published from 1926 to 1931 dedicated to interna ...
-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the
circle A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is con ...
, similar in spirit to the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
design style of the period. It was developed as a typeface by the Bauer Type Foundry (Bauersche Gießerei), in competition with
Ludwig & Mayer Ludwig & Mayer was a German type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Many important designers worked for the Ludwig and Mayer type foundry, including Heinrich Jost, Karlgeorg Hoefer, Helmut Matheis, and most notably Jakob Erbar, whose '' Erba ...
's seminal Erbar typeface of 1926. Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. Although Renner was not associated with the Bauhaus, he shared many of its idioms and believed that a modern typeface should express modern models, rather than be a revival of a previous design. Renner's design rejected the approach of most previous sans-serif designs (now often called
grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...
s), which were based on the models of signpainting, condensed lettering and nineteenth-century serif typefaces, in favour of simple geometric forms: near-perfect circles, triangles and squares. It is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line, and uses nearly-circular, single-story forms for the "a" and "g", the former previously more common in handwriting than in printed text. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals. The original metal type showed extensive adaptation of the design to individual sizes, and several divergent digitisations have been released by different companies. Futura was extensively marketed by Bauer Type Foundry and its American distribution arm by brochure as capturing the spirit of modernity, using the German slogan ''"die Schrift unserer Zeit"'' ("the typeface of our time") and in English ''"the typeface of today and tomorrow"''. It has remained popular since then.


Release

Paul Renner began sketching his letters that would become Futura in 1924; the typeface was available for use three years later. Matrices for machine composition were made by Intertype. Futura was developed as a contribution to the New Frankfurt project, a radical affordable housing project in Frankfurt, Germany that many renowned modernist architects at the time were involved in. Described as “the typeface of our time” and “a face representing the new typography of the European avant-garde”, Futura was released to stand out against the sans-serif and more elaborate, handwritten-style typefaces that were popular at the time in order to promote simplicity, modernism and industrialization. Despite its clean geometric appearance, some of Futura's design choices recalled classic serif typefaces. Unlike many sans-serif designs intended for display purposes, Futura has quite a low
x-height upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the le ...
, reducing its stridency and increasing its suitability for body text. The original Futura design concept included small capitals and
old-style figures Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...
. These were dropped from the original metal issue of the type and first offered digitally by Neufville Digital under the Futura ND family; small caps are also available in the URW++ digitisation. The design of Futura avoids the decorative, eliminating nonessential elements, but makes subtle departures from pure geometric designs that allow the letterforms to seem balanced. This is visible in the apparently almost perfectly round stroke of the ''o'', which is nonetheless slightly ovoid, and in how the circular strokes of letters like ''b'' gently thin as they merge with the verticals. Renner's biographer Christopher Burke has noted the important role of the Bauer Foundry's manufacturing team in adapting the design for different sizes of text, a feature not seen in digital releases. However, Renner expressed some disappointment with the slow design and release process, as it allowed Erbar (1926) to precede his design and other typefaces of similar design to appear in the same year as its release. Renner's original plan was for two versions: a more conventional version suitable for general use, and a more eccentric, geometric lower case based on the circle and triangle. This plan was scrapped, although the characters did appear on an early specimen and more recently on at least one digitisation. Futura was immediately very successful, due to its combination of classicism and modernity. It spawned a range of derivative geometric sans-serif typefaces from competing foundries, particularly in the United States. In the UK Futura, while sometimes used, was overshadowed by Gill Sans, which became popular for similar reasons in the UK and came to define 1930s and 1940s printing. While more humanist, it also has geometric leanings which are particularly visible in the capitals. At a time when Hitler and Nazi Germany ideologies were on the rise, typefaces were a strong indicator of culture and national identity. Roman typefaces were rising in popularity, and they were becoming the standard text for printed documents when previously, German Blackletter was the default style. As a way to hold on to German identity, the Germans pushed for the use of Blackletter typefaces over Roman. When the Nazi regime rose into power in 1933, they utilized Blackletter typefaces to further promote German national identity. They determined
Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
to be the true German type. They rejected modern type styles like Futura, which went on to become popular throughout the world, influenced by the Bauhaus and the English Arts and Crafts Movements. Futura made appearances on Nazi documentation, such as the "Organisationsbuch der NSDAP”, an informational handbook about membership to the Nazi Party and posters promoting “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art), the exhibition that was created by the Nazis to shame modern art. In 1941, the Nazi regime deemed blackletter typefaces to have Jewish heritage due to the Nazi's perception of the typeface looking too similar to Hebrew, and therefore banned Fraktur and any other traditional German handwriting. Roman typography, which included Futura, became the new standard due to its superior legibility over blackletter typography.


Usage

Futura remains an important typeface family and is used on a daily basis for print and digital purposes as both a headline and body font. The font is also used extensively in advertisements and logos, notably by IKEA (until 2010), Supreme,
Party City Party City Holdco Inc. is an American publicly traded retail chain of party stores founded in 1986 by Steve Mandell in East Hanover, New Jersey. Party City’s parent organization is Party City Holdings Inc. Based in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, the comp ...
,
Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...
,
Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
,
Crayola Crayola LLC, formerly the Binney & Smith Company, is an American manufacturing company specializing in art supplies. It is known for its brand ''Crayola'' and best known for its crayons. The company is headquartered in Forks Township, Pennsylva ...
, Swissair,
FremantleMedia Fremantle (; formerly FremantleMedia) is a British multinational television production and distribution company based in London. Fremantle takes its name from Fremantle International, acquired by predecessor company All American Television i ...
(until 2018), Absolut and HP in their print ads. Particularly until the 1950s it was used extensively by the publishing industry as a general-purpose font. Beginning in the late 1970s, Futura was also the iconic typeface used by American Conceptual artist
Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...
. She layers white text, set in Futura Bold Oblique, on a red background against black and white found photography from mass media sources. Her text challenges the viewer to reflect on gender, stereotypes and consumerism. Some of her notable works where Futura is featured are “Untitled (Your body is a battleground)", "You Are Not Yourself" and "I shop, Therefore I Am". A Cyrillic variant of the Futura Medium typography was made by Anatoli Muzanov for the 1980 Summer Olympics held in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
. Futura is also employed by Fox News Channel, the
RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...
(the Italian public broadcasting agency) for its logo and is used in the Italian railway system for signs. Futura has been used extensively in film and video. It is used for the title logo of the 1999 film '' American Beauty''. It was also used in various TV shows including '' Doug'', ''
Lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
and'' '' Warehouse 13.'' The most notable show to utilize Futura was ''
Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...
'', as the font was used whenever letters, numbers, or words were displayed. To make the font more distinguishable to children, some of the characters were altered, such as the addition of serifs on the capital "I", a tail on the lowercase "j", and an open variant of the number "4". Futura is featured ubiquitously throughout the film adaptation of ''
V for Vendetta ''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British anthol ...
'', for everything from the title logo and ending credits, to signs, newspapers, computer screens and other props. Some filmmakers used Futura in almost every films like
Gaspar Noe Gaspar is a given and/or surname of French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish origin, cognate to Casper (given name) or Casper (surname). It is a name of biblical origin, per Saint Gaspar, one of the wise men mentioned in the Bible. Notable p ...
.
Wes Anderson Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American filmmaker. His films are known for their eccentricity and unique visual and narrative styles. They often contain themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Cited by ...
is also fond of the font and used it in some of his films. Futura was also Stanley Kubrick's favorite typeface. Transport is another important area where Futura has been used extensively due to its ability to be read quickly from a distance; it can be found extensively in the instrument panel graphics within
automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...
s —
Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to as Mercedes and sometimes as Benz, is a German luxury and commercial vehicle automotive brand established in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a Mercedes-Benz Group subsidiary established in 2019) is headquartere ...
, Citroën being some of the most prolific users of the font. Futura is used extensively in aviation for instruments and control legends — most
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
airliners use Futura within their cockpit controls, for example.
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
used Futura frequently during the Apollo space program, with charts, technical documents, and spacecraft instrumentation labels all making use of the typeface. Crockett Johnson used Futura for the lettering of his ''
Barnaby Barnaby is an Old English surname composed of the Saxon element ''beorn'' 'young warrior' and the Danish suffix ''by'' meaning 'settlement'. As a given name, it means "son of consolation" and is etymologically linked with the New Testament name Bar ...
'' comic strip, which started running in April 1942 in the newspaper '' PM''. Where many cartoonists lettered their dialogues by hand, Johnson collaborated with the ''PM'' typesetters who would set his dialogues in italicized Futura medium and return them to him so that they could be integrated to his drawings.
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
used a modified version of Futura for its original 1986 version of the current logo and its wordmarks. A bold version of the font was used for NBC Sports on-screen graphics from 1989 to 1991, and by
CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...
from 1992 to 1996. In 1997, the Pittsburgh Steelers (an
American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
team) switched to rounded numbers on the jersey to match the number font (Futura Condensed) on their helmets. In 2012 the newly formed
Western Sydney Wanderers Western Sydney Wanderers Football Club (colloquially known as Western Sydney, or simply as Wanderers) is an Australian professional soccer club based in the Western Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier ...
Football Club used Futura in their logo and for club documentation. The
Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. Founded in 19 ...
adopted Futura during their 2017 rebranding. The
National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
's
Nashville Predators The Nashville Predators (commonly referred to as the Preds) are a professional ice hockey team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and ha ...
use Futura Bold Condensed as the font for the names on the back of player jerseys. Futura is used on the current TV5 logo, the "Rainbow" logo of previous
GMA Network GMA Network (Global Media Arts or simply GMA) is a Philippine free-to-air television and radio network. It is the flagship property of publicly traded GMA Network, Inc. Its first broadcast on television was on October 29, 1961. GMA Network (f ...
in Extra Heavy style, and is also
Animax Asia Animax is the pay television channel in Asia owned by KC Global Media Asia which broadcasts Japanese language anime and Simulcast anime, anime programming through English-language feeds in Southeast Asia (formerly including Brunei), South Asia (e ...
's main typeface. All four of
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 2006 and currently signed to Columbia Records. The band was formed by lead vocalist and guitarist Ezra Koenig, multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij, drummer Chris Tomson ...
's albums use Futura on the covers, with the first two being exclusively Futura. The Boston Celtics' championship banners are also in Futura Condensed. 2008
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
-
fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
film ''
City of Ember ''City of Ember'' is a 2008 American science fantasy adventure film based on the 2003 novel '' The City of Ember'' by Jeanne DuPrau. Directed by Gil Kenan in his live-action directorial debut, the film stars Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, B ...
'' features Futura Medium in many prints through the story. The condensed version was used by videogame developer Bethesda Softworks for several of their games, including ''
Fallout 3 ''Fallout 3'' is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The third major installment in the ''Fallout'' series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring ...
'', '' Fallout: New Vegas'', '' The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim'' and ''
Fallout 4 ''Fallout 4'' is a 2015 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fourth main game in the ''Fallout'' series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for PlayStation 4, ...
'' as well as being used extensively throughout the ''
Watchmen ''Watchmen'' is an American comic book maxiseries by the British creative team of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. It was published monthly by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987 before being collected in a single-vo ...
'' graphic novel as well as the movie based on it. The Medium version is a font used predominantly alongside the Stratum 2 font in the 2014 racing video game ''
Driveclub ''Driveclub'' is a racing video game developed by Evolution Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4. It was announced during the PlayStation 4 press conference on 20 February 2013, and, after several delays, was rel ...
''. The '' Hoops & Yoyo'' advertisements used Futura. In season 2 of ''
Stargate Universe ''Stargate Universe'' (often abbreviated as ''SGU'') is a military science fiction television series and part of MGM's ''Stargate'' franchise. It follows the adventures of a present-day, multinational exploration team traveling on the Ancient ...
'', episode "Common Descent – Part 1" the ancestors of the crew state that one of the two continents was named "Futura". There are several references to the name being a font in the episode. Futura also served as the typeface for UK television series ''
Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...
''s title cards, coloured white upon a neon yellow background (neon green in season two).


Later metal type versions


Futura Condensed

Futura Condensed is a condensed version of the original Futura font family. Bold and bold oblique fonts were released in 1930. Medium, medium oblique, extra bold, and extra bold oblique fonts were released in 1936. Light and light oblique fonts were released in 1950.


Futura Demibold

Futura Demibold is a variation of the original Futura.


Futura Display (Futura Schlagzeile)

Released in 1932, Futura Display uses more angular strokes, resulting in rectangular letter forms. This is also the font used on the covers of the classic Region 2 '' Doctor Who'' DVD covers, and was used on the covers of most '' Star Trek'' novels published by
Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing ...
during the 1980s. A slimmer variant seems to have been used by the
Canadian Tire Corporation Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited is a Canadian retail company which operates in the automotive, hardware, sports, leisure and housewares sectors. Its Canadian operations include: Canadian Tire (including Canadian Tire Petroleum gas stations a ...
in their wordmark and logo. Futura Display is also used in the logo for the manga/
anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
series ''
My Hero Academia is a Japanese superhero manga series written and illustrated by Kōhei Horikoshi. It has been serialized in Shueisha's ''shōnen'' manga magazine '' Weekly Shōnen Jump'' since July 2014, with its chapters additionally collected i ...
''.


Futura Black

First released in 1929, Futura Black is an alternative design that uses stencil letter forms. Example uses of the font include the public safety departments of the city of
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, the "R" logo of the National Association of Realtors, title sequences of television programs such as ''
The Love Boat ''The Love Boat'' is an American romantic comedy/drama television series that aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986; in addition, four three-hour specials aired in 1986, 1987, and 1990. The series was set on the luxury passenger cruise ship MS ''Pa ...
'' and '' Prisoner: Cell Block H'', and as the wordmark for the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
's
Minnesota Vikings The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...
from 1982 to 2003. The movie logo for the 2021 James Bond film ''
No Time to Die ''No Time to Die'' is a 2021 spy film and the twenty-fifth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, starring Daniel Craig in his fifth and final portrayal of fictional British MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Cary ...
'' also uses Futura Black.


Steile Futura

Steile Futura was Paul Renner's attempt to create a typeface that would be closer to the nineteenth century sans serifs than to the geometric model. During the course of development, Renner developed several intermediate versions. Some of the early design could be found in the experimental font called Renner-Grotesk, which appeared as a trial type casting from the Stempel type foundry in 1936. Renner kursiv, a true italic companion to the regular version, was made after Stempel had been taken over by Bauer in 1938. The work on the type family continued in the 1940s, but Renner's poor health had slowed down the development. Renner started to work again on this project in 1951 under the name of Steile Futura (''steil'' in German means "upright" or "steep"). The font family released by Bauer consist of mager (light), halbfett (medium), fett (bold), kursiv halbfett (medium italic), and kursiv fett (bold italic). The font family was released in 1952–1953. It was sold by Bauer in German, English, Spanish, and French markets as Steile Futura, Bauer Topic, Vox, Zénith respectively. The font family has rounder letters than Futura Display. For the first time, italic type features are incorporated in the italic fonts. The fonts incorporate handwriting features, especially in italic version. URW and Berthold have released digitisations, URW's under the name of "Topic", its name in original release in some non-German speaking countries.
Tasse ''For the piece of medieval armor, see tassets'' ''You might also mean tasse à café A ''tasse à café'' (, ''coffee cup'') is a cup, generally of white porcelain and of around 120  ml (4  fl oz), in which coffee is served. It ...
by
Font Bureau The Font Bureau, Inc. or Font Bureau is a digital type foundry based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers. History ...
is a loose adaptation.


Futura Inline

An " inline" version with a line drawn through each letter.


Digitisations

With the demise of hot metal typesetting, Futura has been redrawn in digital formats. Because of complex licensing agreements, there is no one digital version of Futura but several, each with different features. (Some releases may be re-drawings or upgraded versions of earlier digital releases.) Releases of Futura exist from Linotype, Bitstream, URW++ (several),
Elsner+Flake Elsner+Flake is a trademark used by German type foundry originally called EF Designstudios but later renamed Elsner+Flake Type Consulting GmbH and is currently based in Hamburg. The company was founded in 1986 by Veronika Elsner and Günther Flake ...
and many others under that name, and by many other companies under others because of rights issues. For example, Fontsite's (including Futura Black and Poster) is renamed as 'Function'. As with all metal type revivals, converting Futura into a digital format poses interpretative challenges. Metal type fonts could be made differently for each text size, so a variety of metal and phototype versions of Futura exist on which a revival could potentially be based. In addition, revivals will need to add characters not present in the original Futura like the Euro sign and Cyrillic, and therefore do not all have the same character set. Futura revivals may also decide to make design changes, like replacing Futura's straight 'j' with a more conventional substitute as URW's revival does. Scangraphic's revival notably includes optical sizes, with a tighter-spaced design (SH) created for headlines and a more spread-out version (SB) for body text sizes. As an assessment of the decisions involved, a wide-ranging review by Stephen Coles of digitisations of Futura and its competitor geometrics noted that Bitstream's "abandons some of the strict geometry in favour of a more harmonious whole, but it may not be the Futura you were expecting," and that URW's Futura Nr. 2 was "Possibly optimized for small text: it’s wider, ascenders shorter, counters larger, and apertures more open. Conversely, round glyphs (a, g, e,) are more true to the circle. This attribute doesn’t make this a great text face, but if you want that strict geometry, No. 2 delivers."


Architype Renner (1993)

Released by The Foundry in 1993, reproduces the experimental alternate characters and old style text figures of Paul Renner's 1927–29 typeface Futura. The alternate characters Renner proposed were mostly deleted from the typeface, resulting in a more conventional, and perhaps more successful typeface. The old style text figures disappeared at the end of 1920s, when the typeface was released in America. The Archetype Renner typefaces are a faithful recreation of Renner's original designs and released by The Foundry as single regular weight. Archetype Renner Bold was originally released by The Foundry in 1996 as part of the Archetype 2 series and in 2011 it was expanded as a 4 weight family: Regular, Medium, Demi and Bold.


Futura ND, Futura ND Black, Futura ND Display (1999)

This version is based on the original sources of the Bauer Type Foundry, which had passed its typefaces to its Barcelona branch, Fundición Tipográfica Bauer SL. Released in 1999 by Neufville Digital — a joint venture of Fundición Tipográfica Bauer SL and Visualogik Technology & Design b.v — it includes small capitals and the old-style figures that had not been made in metal types. The redesign was done by Marie-Thérèse Koreman. Neufville Digital issued Futura, Futura Black, Futura Condensed, and Futura Display (Futura Schlagzeile) under the Futura ND family. A limited release with some weights and features missing is bundled with
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
. OpenType features included stylistic alternates, lining figures, proportional figures, old style figures, tabular figures, fractions, standard/discretional ligatures, superscript, small caps.


Futura ND Alternate (2015)

Designed by Marie-Thérèse Koreman, it is a version of Futura ND published by Bauer Type Foundry. with alternate character designs, which also includes more angular glyphs found in early versions of Futura. The family includes 50 fonts in 6 weights and 2 widths, with book and demibold missing in condensed width, with complementary oblique.


Futura Next (2016)

Designed by Marie-Thérèse Koreman, it is a version of Futura ND Alternate with alternate characters designed for small or low resolution displays. The family includes 20 fonts in 6 weights and 2 widths, with book and demibold missing in condensed width, with complementary oblique. Small caps and old style figures are included in 18 fonts.


ParaType version

The ParaType fonts added Cyrillic characters. They were developed at ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1995 by Vladimir Yefimov. They came in only Light, Book, Medium, and Demi weights.


Futura PT

This version is based on the previous ParaType design by Vladimir Yefimov (see above), expanded to include seven weights, with Book, Medium, Bold, Extra Bold weights for condensed fonts. Additional Cyrillic styles were developed in 2007 by Isabella Chaeva.


Futura Futuris

Futuris is a redesign at ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1991 by Vladimir Yefimov that includes Cyrillic characters. Condensed styles were added in 1993 by Vladimir Yefimov and Alexander Tarbeev. It is available in Light, Medium, Bold, Black (without oblique) weights, while condensed fonts were made in Bold, Extra Bold, all without obliques. Also available are Cameo Extra Bold (black in reverse), Shadow Light, Shadow Extra Bold (black with shadow), Volume Light.


Futura Eugenia

This version is based on the Futura Black, but designed at the Polygraphmash type design bureau in 1987 by Elvira Slysh.


Bukra

Bukra is an Arabic variant designed by Pascal Zoghbi. It consists of Bukra Extra Bold, which was used as an Arabic display typeface for
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in Dubai as a complement for Futura Extra Bold. The design was based on Kufi script, but using shortened descenders. The name ''Bukra'' itself is a phonetic representation of one way to express "tomorrow" or "in the future" in some Arabic cultures.


URW++

Unusually, URW has two main digitisations, Futura and Futura No. 2. Futura 1 has the larger range of weights with some unusual versions like stencil and shadowed designs, while Futura No. 2 has, amongst other differences, a conventional 'j' in all the non-condensed weights apart from demi-bold, but no italics except in some bold weights. According to URW, No. 2 is based on
Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry transfer method. Letraset has been acquired by the Colart group and become part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. Corporate his ...
's version. It has also released some styles as Futura 3 and 7.


Futura Classic

This release by Gert Wiescher is notable for presenting the original alternate characters planned by Renner. They have also appeared on a digitisation of
Twentieth Century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 (1901, MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 (2000, MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu, Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and ...
, Monotype's competitor to Futura, a release which allows them to be mixed and matched with the more standard characters and small caps.


FuturaRenner

This free and open source typeface was digitized by Bastien Sozoo in 2011 around his presence at
La Cambre L'École nationale supérieure des arts visuels de La Cambre (ENSAV), more known as La Cambre, is a renowned visual arts school founded by Henry van de Velde in Brussels in 1926. It was founded as the ''Institut supérieur des Arts décoratifs'' ...
art school in Brussels. The metal lead type in the letterpress facility of the school were given by Renner to
Henry Van de Velde Henry Clemens van de Velde (; 3 April 1863 – 15 October 1957) was a Belgian painter, architect, interior designer, and art theorist. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, he is considered one of the founders of Art Nouveau in Belgium ...
, the school founder, and the original 1927 forms are, as Sozoo described it, "the first draft of Futura as we know it." While the capital letters are very similar to their modern counterparts (some visible differences include capital J's descent below the base line and a slightly higher crossbar on capital A), FuturaRenner uses text figures as opposed to the usual lining figures, and the letter forms of r (which has a distinctive dot-and-line styling), m and n (both of which are box-based and unrounded) are in particular contrast to modern Futura adaptations. FuturaRenner is available in light and regular weights, both of which are licensed under the SIL Open Font License.


Futura Now

In October 2020, Monotype re-digitized and released as Futura Now, which is based on Paul Renner's original design with additional 102 styles.


Legacy

Though Erbar was the first of the new geometric sans-serif typefaces, the commercial success of Futura encouraged other foundries to create many new similar typefaces to compete with it, including Kabel,
Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urb ...
,
Spartan Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta refe ...
, Vogue,
Twentieth Century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 (1901, MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 (2000, MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu, Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and ...
, Airport,
Semplicità Semplicità is a sans-serif typeface of the geometric style. It was published by the Nebiolo type foundry of Turin, Italy from around 1928. Semplicità, named for the Italian for "simplicity", is an example of the new wave of "geometric" sans-s ...
, Bernhard Gothic, and Tempo. Some were near-identical copies, like Spartan and Twentieth Century, while others were more distinct, like Nobel and Kabel. Futura was rebranded in France by
Deberny & Peignot Deberny & Peignot (Fonderie Deberny et Peignot) was a French type foundry, created by the 1923 merger of G. Peignot & Fils and Deberny & Cie. It was bought by the Haas Type Foundry (Switzerland) in 1972, which in turn was merged into D. Stempel ...
as "Europe". In Germany the designer Arno Drescher created the family Super Grotesk, which became very popular in East Germany after the war. Stephen Coles has described
FontShop International FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them renowne ...
's Super Grotesk digitisation as surprisingly useful, noting that its digitisation is unusually well-hinted allowing good display on Windows computers. It also features a conventional 'j'. Another German competitor, also recently digitised by FontFont, was Friedrich Bauer's Bauer Grotesk, issued by J. D. Trennert & Sohn and then Genzsch & Heyse. Volkswagen's
VAG Rounded ''VAG Rundschrift'' or VAG Rounded (''Rundschrift'' is German for 'round typeface', short of ''abgerundete Schrift'', 'rounded typeface') is a geometric sans-serif typeface that was designed as a corporate typographic voice for the Volkswagen AG m ...
typeface borrows the same letterforms as Futura, but has rounded terminals on all strokes. Typeface designer
Adrian Frutiger Adrian Johann Frutiger ( ; 24 May 1928 – 10 September 2015) was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digita ...
acknowledges Futura as one of his inspirations for his 1988 typeface Avenir. More recently Futura has been the basis of IKEA Sans and Opel Sans, fonts designed (for IKEA and Opel, respectively) by Robin Nicholas. The
Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and larges ...
developed the
Toronto Subway The Toronto subway is a rapid transit system serving Toronto and the neighbouring city of Vaughan in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is a multimodal rail network consisting of three heavy-capacity rail ...
font based on Futura for use in
Toronto subway The Toronto subway is a rapid transit system serving Toronto and the neighbouring city of Vaughan in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is a multimodal rail network consisting of three heavy-capacity rail ...
station signage since 1954.
Tasse ''For the piece of medieval armor, see tassets'' ''You might also mean tasse à café A ''tasse à café'' (, ''coffee cup'') is a cup, generally of white porcelain and of around 120  ml (4  fl oz), in which coffee is served. It ...
is a revival of Steile Futura.
League Spartan
an
Beteckna
are descendants of Futura that are licensed as
Free Software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
(Under the
SIL OFL The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Internationa ...
and GNU GPL+FE licenses, respectively). Century Gothic borrows liberally from Futura letterforms, with the glyphs adjusted to be metrically compatible with another geometric sans-serif, ITC Avant Garde. Brandon Grotesque is inspired by Futura but with an unusually low x-height, giving it a more elegant appearance for uses such as headings and
display Display may refer to: Technology * Display device, output device for presenting information, including: ** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep ** Electronic visual display, output devi ...
settings. Designed by Hannes von Döhren of HVD Fonts, it is the main corporate font of
Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programmin ...
. In 2014, von Döhren released ''Brandon Text'', a tighter version intended for body text. Braggadocio is based on Futura Black. The 2000 typeface Gotham is similarly geometric and based on 1920s signage. Passata is a modernised version of Futura specifically designed to replace Futura as the corporate branding font of Aarhus University.
Product Sans Product Sans is a contemporary geometric sans-serif typeface created by Google for branding purposes. It replaced the old Google logo on September 1, 2015. As Google's branding was becoming more apparent on a multitude of kinds of devices, Googl ...
is similar to Futura with slight differences. American singer and rapper
Frank Ocean Christopher Francis "Frank" Ocean (born Christopher Edwin Breaux; October 28, 1987), is an American singer, songwriter, and rapper. His works are noted by music critics for featuring avant-garde styles and introspective, elliptical lyrics. Ocean ...
mentions the font many times on his album ''
Blonde Blond (male) or blonde (female), also referred to as fair hair, is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can ...
'', even using a variant of the font for the album cover and using the name for the song "Futura Free". Arve Båtevik designed two typefaces which are based on the Futura typeface: LL Supreme and LL Supreme Display.


References


Further reading

* Alexandre Dumas de Rauly, Michel Wlassikoff, ''Futura Une gloire typographique'', Paris, Éditions NORMA, 2011, . * Burke, Christopher, ''Paul Renner: the art of typography''. London: Hyphen Press, 1998. . * Garfield, Simon, '' Just My Type''. Gotham Books, London; 2011. . * Haley, Allen, ''Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts''. Rockport Publishers Inc, Gloucester; 1998. . * Jaspert, Berry and Johnson, ''Encyclopaedia of Typefaces''. Cassell Paperback, London; 2001. . * Lawson, Alexander S., ''
Anatomy of a Typeface ''Anatomy of a Typeface'' is a book on typefaces written by Alexander Lawson.''Anatomy of a Typeface'', Alexander Lawson, David R. Godine, 1990. Background The book is notable for devoting entire chapters to the development and uses of individual ...
''. Godine: 1990. . * Meggs, Philip. B and McKelvey, Roy, ''Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces''. RC Publications; 2002. . * Ronson, Jon
"Citizen Kubrick"
''The Guardian'', London, March 27, 2004. * Thomas, Douglas. ''Never Use Futura, Unless''. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2017. .


External links


Fonts In Use: Futura
*Bauer Types pages
Futura NDFutura ND AlternateFutura ND BlackFutura ND DisplayFutura Next
{{Authority control Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1927 Geometric sans-serif typefaces Photocomposition typefaces Digital typefaces Government typefaces Traffic signs Typefaces with optical sizes Typefaces designed by Paul Renner Bauer Type Foundry typefaces