Futura

Ana Ramos

3221019

German born Paul Renner (1878-1956) was the man who designed the typeface known as Futura. "He was a reflective thinker about design, and his perspective on the development of modern ideas in design was that he was not a young revolutionary like some of the Bauhaus designers." Having tried to reform typography from within traditional approaches, he was open to the New Typography, but cautious to the balance between innovation and continuity.

In the winter of 1924, Renner developed a trial cut version of Futura in which the earlier versions of the typeface contained a set of lowercase characters that were radically different to the Futura we see today- particularly the a and the g, while the r was an unconnected stem and spot. Renner's approach to the design of the typeface was very geometric- a marriage of he circle and the straight line. When he applied this approach to the lowercase it resulted in g's with angular lower loops and a's with right angles in the upper loop. The first type specimen of Futura, released in 1927, featured some of these characters but by the second edition in 1928, they were gone. Renner later stated that he considered there to be two versions of Futura; a more conventional version and a 'Constructivist' one. Three weights were available on its first release- Light, Regular, and Bold - giving a versatile palette of differentiation. Futura Black, a stencil version, appeared in 1929, followed by the arrival of Semi-Bold, a slanted version of Light and Regular, and Bold Condensed in 1930.

Futura is derived from forms such as near perfect circles, triangles and squares, and is based on strokes of near-even weight which are low in contrast. The idea of geometric form was in the air in 1920s Europe, and Futura was the best realisation of a geometric sans-serif. Renner's aim was to rid any visible reference to calligraphy inclined appearance of small letters and to bring them under the influence of the static form that defined capitals. He sought to bind the two by a common basis in static construction. He stated, "Everything followed from the desire to carry the strict geometric structure of the capitals into the small letters... I consciously suppressed and eradicated all those small qualities that creep in to the design of their own accord when the form is developed from handwriting." Not all modernist typographers liked it or used it, some preferred the anonymous 19th Century grotesque types, but it was widely used and commercially successful. 

In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative by eliminating non-essential elements and started all his drawings from scratch. The lowercase has tall ascenders which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical roman capitals. Futura is a monochrome type, meaning that the strokes are uniform in width. There are other subtle features of this typeface as well. The top counter of the capital letter B is smaller than the lower, the G is a broken circle with a cross-piece, the M is splayed and the J has no tail. To stop Futura appearing coarse, the arches have been made thinner where the curves meet a vertical line, for example, the lowercase 'd'.

Overall, it is the proportions combined with the stroke weights which makes Futura so appealing; it can evoke the period in which it was created yet still look utterly modern today.

References

Aldrich-Ruenzel. N, & Fennell. J, 1991, Designer’s Guide To Typography, Step-by-Step Publishing, Great Britain

Balius. A, & Arrausi. J, 2002, Interview With Christopher Burke, Hyphen Press, 23 July 2009, http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/journal/2002/05/17/burke_interview

Bringhurst. R, 2001, The Elements of Typographic Style, Hartley & Marks Publishers, Canada

Burke. C, 1998, Paul Renner: The Art of Typography, Hyphen Press, London

Kirsanov. D, 1998, San Serif History, The World of Fonts, 26 July 2009, http://www.webreference.com/dlab/9802/sansserif.html

Loxley. S, 2004, Type: The Secret History of Letters, I.B. Taurus & Co, London

Unger. G, 2007, While You’re Reading, Mark Batty Publisher, New York