My Love for Futura Knows No Bounds

Futura Type Sample

Futura was designed in 1927 by Paul Renner, a German type designer, and commissioned by the Bauer type foundry. Renner held the very Bauhaus/Howard Roark belief that a typeface shouldn’t necessarily be a revival of a previous design. When designing the face, he eliminated all non-essential elements, a design principle I usually try to follow myself.

I love the simplicity and symmetry of it’s geometrical forms; almost all the strokes have an even weight. (Note the O.) My favorite form is the lowercase T, with the cross stroke just barely longer on the right side. The uppercase Q and lowercase A are close seconds.

If you like this clean typeface, you may also enjoy Century Gothic, Tasse, Solex, Avenir (inspired by Futura) or Steile Futura.

You might also recognize Futura from Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick films. Barbara Kruger has built a career on Futura Bold Oblique, and Futura is also the only typeface with the distinction of living on the moon.)

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Don't be a jerk, keep comments on topic. If you can't play nice I'll throw you out of the sandbox.

Comment Feed