Venus Bold Type Specimen (9142443945) (cropped)

Venus or Venus-Grotesk is a

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 family released by the

Bauer Type Foundry Bauer is a German surname meaning "peasant" or "farmer". For notable people sharing the surname, see Bauer (surname). Bauer may also refer to: Education and literature * Bauer's Lexicon, a dictionary of Biblical Greek * Bauer College of Bus ...

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

from 1907 onwards. Released in a large range of styles, including condensed and extended weights, it was very popular in the early-to-mid twentieth century. It was exported to other countries, notably the United States, where it was distributed by Bauer Alphabets Inc, the U.S. branch of the firm. Like other "grotesque" typefaces of the period such as

Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. ''german: label=none, italic=no, "Akzidenz"'' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tick ...

of the

Berthold Type Foundry H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era, making the transition from foundry type to cold type successfully and only coming to dissolution in the digital type era. ...

, Venus has a minimal, 'neutral' design, with a monoline structure and an absence of flourishes. However, compared to many later sans-serifs, such as

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) ...

and

Univers Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteen ...

, it has a more irregular design, with stroke terminals at a variety of angles rather than generally exactly horizontal or vertical. A notable feature is the distinctive motif of unusually high-waisted capitals, visible in the 'R', 'G' and 'E'.

Walter Tracy Walter Valentine Tracy RDI (14 February 1914 – 28 April 1995) was an English type designer, typographer and writer. Biography Walter Tracy was born in Islington, London and attended Shoreditch Secondary school. At the age of fourteen he wa ...

describes this as similar to some of the much more adorned

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

and

Secessionist Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics lea ...

lettering of the period. Original versions had sheared horizontal stroke terminals on 'E' and 'F', but in the later metal-type period it was sold with alternate capitals without these. The 'g' is single-storey and the sloped form is an

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) * Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry *Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

, rather than a true italic. A double-storey 'g' was also available as an alternate character. A prominent use of it was

Jan Tschichold Jan Tschichold (born Johannes Tzschichhold, also known as Iwan Tschichold, or Ivan Tschichold; 2 April 1902 – 11 August 1974) was a German calligrapher, typographer and book designer. He played a significant role in the development of gra ...

's second book, ''Eine Stunde Druckgestaltung'', (1930), which used it for body text. It was also used in other avant-garde printing of the period.

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

, a major United Kingdom supermarket chain, used Venus in its logo for many years. A number of digitisations have been released based on some styles of the family. Monotype's 1920s Grotesque 215 and 216 series, created for their

hot metal typesetting In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) is a technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mol ...

system, were also reportedly loosely based on it; the standard Windows typeface

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 ...

is influenced by them. In 2007, David Berlow published the Vonness typeface, loosely based on the Venus typeface. Eric Olson designed the Coordinates typeface, a monospaced sans-serif typeface based on the Venus typeface.

Gallery

File:Venus Bold Extended Type Specimen (10544068414).jpg, Venus Bold Extended File:Venus Extra Bold Type Specimen (8033811809).jpg, Venus Extra Bold File:Venus Bold Condensed Type Specimen (9266586068).jpg, Venus Bold Condensed

References

{{notelist, 30em

External links

* Fonts In Use
Venus
an
Venus breit fett

Bauer specimen
Grotesque sans-serif typefaces Display typefaces Bauer Type Foundry typefaces