Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. Designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project, it is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.The Bauhaus Designer Paul Renner. Creative Pro. It was developed as a typeface by Bauersche Gießerei, in competition with Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar typeface.
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 grotesques), which were based on the models of sign painting, 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-storey 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 Bauersche Gießerei and its American distribution arm by brochure as capturing the spirit of modernity, using the German slogan ["the typeface of our time"] and in English "the typeface of today and tomorrow". It has remained popular since then.
Release
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.
Design 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, reducing its stridency and increasing its suitability for body text.
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'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, and was heavily marketed as embodying the spirit of modernity. Other foundries quickly launched derivative geometric sans-serif typefaces, 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 where Blackletter typefaces had been the default style. As a way to hold on to German identity, many German nationalists promoted Blackletter typefaces over Roman. When the Nazi regime rose into power in 1933, they used Blackletter typefaces, such as Fraktur and Tannenberg, to advance German national identity. 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. Even so, Futura made appearances on Nazi documentation, such as the , an informational handbook about membership to the Nazi Party and on posters promoting [Degenerate Art], the exhibition that was created by the Nazis to denounce modern art. In 1941, in his "Normal type" decree, Nazi party chief Martin Bormann changed the policy in favour of Antiqua, a Roman typeface. This and other Roman faces, which included Futura, became the new standard due to its superior legibility over blackletter typography. See also
Design historian Dan Reynolds notes that its slogan "the typeface of today" was not the first time Bauer had used that slogan: it had previously been used to market Wieynck-Kursiv (also known as Wienyk-Kursiv), a florid script typeface by Heinrich Wieynck that never became very popular, around 1914: "Nobody has ever described Wieynk-Kursiv that way since then, as the claim was simply not accurate, just aspirational. I think the company had a marketing slogan in its back pocket, which it hoped would eventually stick. With Futura, it finally did".
Usage
Futura remains an important typeface family and continues to be used for both a headline and body content.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Futura was also the iconic typeface used by American Conceptual artist Barbara Kruger. 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.
Some filmmakers used Futura frequently in their films. Gaspar Noé uses Futura in almost all his films. Futura was used in the early films of Wes Anderson, including in the titles of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore (film), and Fantastic Mr. Fox (film) and extensive use in the prop design and titles in The Royal Tennenbaums. Title designer Maurice Binder also used Futura in the title sequence for the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.
Crockett Johnson used Futura for the lettering of his Barnaby 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.
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 Display (Futura Schlagzeile)
Released in 1932, Futura Display uses more angular strokes, resulting in rectangular letter forms.
Futura Extra Bold Designed in 1952 by Edwin W. Shaar, Futura Extra Bold was film director Stanley Kubrick's favorite typeface.
Futura Black
First released in 1929, Futura Black is an alternative design that uses stencil letter forms, high contrast and triangular serifs, with similarities to fat face types. Example uses of the font include the public safety departments of the city of Boston, the "R" logo of the National Association of Realtors, title sequences of television programs such as The Love Boat and Prisoner: Cell Block H, the wordmark for the defunct discount store chain Bradlees, and as the wordmark for the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings from 1982 to 2003. The movie logo for the 2021 James Bond film No Time to Die 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.About Steile Futura. Mitja-m.com.
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 by Font Bureau 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 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.