Geneva is a

neo-grotesque 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 ...

or "industrial"

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 list of type ...

Susan Kare Susan Kare ( "care"; born February 5, 1954) is an American artist and graphic designer best known for her interface elements and typeface contributions to the first Apple Macintosh from 1983 to 1986. She was employee #10 and Creative Director at ...

for

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

. It is one of the oldest fonts shipped with

Macintosh operating systems Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded " ...

. The original version was a

bitmap font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for prin ...

, but later versions were converted to

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating sy ...

when that technology became available on the Macintosh platform. Because this Macintosh font is not commonly available on other platforms, many users find

Verdana Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography ...

Microsoft Sans Serif Microsoft Sans Serif is a TrueType font introduced with early Windows versions. It is the successor of MS Sans Serif (formerly Helv), a proportional bitmap font introduced in Windows 1.0. Both fonts are very similar in design to Arial and Helvet ...

Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software appli ...

to be an acceptable substitute. Geneva was originally a redesigned version of the famous Linotype typeface

Helvetica Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...

; the TrueType version of the font is somewhat different. Helvetica is named after the Latin name for

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, home country of its original designer

Max Miedinger Max Miedinger (24 December 1910 – 8 March 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer, best known for creating the ''Neue Haas Grotesk'' typeface in 1957, renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica achie ...

;

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

is Switzerland's second-largest city. The bitmap version varied by appearance in different sizes; in smaller sizes, the lowercase i, j and l had serifs on the top, the lowercase y was parallel, the centre vertex of the uppercase M was much higher, and the 3 had a flat top. Larger sizes of the font depicted said characters as they appear in the TrueType version. From Mac OS 8.5 onwards, the bitmap version removed said serifs from the lowercase i, j and l and the lowercase y became angled like in the TrueType version, but the 3 kept the flat top. The bitmap designs are still available on newer versions of the

Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devic ...

app.

Unusually for neo-grotesque faces, later versions of Geneva include a basic set of ligatures and the archaic

long s The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaism, archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" ...

and

R rotunda The r rotunda ⟨ ꝛ ⟩, "rounded r", is a historical calligraphic variant of the minuscule (lowercase) letter Latin '' r'' used in full script-like typefaces, especially blackletters. Unlike other letter variants such as "long s" which or ...

as alternates. A slightly modified version of Geneva, called Simple, was included in the

Apple Newton The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started ...

operating system. Osaka, a default Japanese gothic typeface for Mac OS, also derived from Geneva typeface.

References

*
Notes on 4 Apple Fonts
– a description of the design of the TrueType versions of Chicago, New York, Geneva and Monaco. Apple Inc. typefaces Grotesque sans-serif typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1984 Neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces Typefaces designed by Susan Kare {{Typ-stub