Fontstructing since | 14th February, 2021 |
Fontstructions | 75 shared, 0 staff picks |
Shared Glyphs | 10279 |
Downloads | 440 downloads made of this designer’s work |
Comments Made | 5 |
Futura is the fully developed prototype of the twentieth century Geometric Sanserif. The form is ancient, Greek capitals being inscribed by the Cretans twenty-five hundred years ago at the time of Pythagoras in the Gortyn Code, by the Imperial Romans, notably in the tomb of the Scipios, by classical revival architects in eighteenth century London, which formed the basis for Caslon’s first sanserif typeface in 1817. Some aspects of the Geometric sanserif survived in the flood of Gothics that followed, particularly in the work of Vincent Figgins. In 1927, stimulated by the Bauhaus experiments in geometric form and the Ludwig & Mayer typeface Erbar, Paul Renner sketched a set of Bauhaus forms; working from these, the professional letter design office at Bauer reinvented the sanserif based on strokes of even weight, perfect circles and isosceles triangles and brought the Universal Alphabet and Erbar to their definitive typographic form. Futura became the most popular sanserif of the middle years of the twentieth century. Ironically, given its generic past, Futura is the only typeface to have been granted registration under copyright as an original work of art, and, further irony, given the key part played by the Bauer letter design office, the full copyright belongs to Renner and his heirs. This decision in a Frankfurt court implies that a further small group of older typefaces may also be covered by copyright in Germany, particularly those designed for Stempel by Hermann Zapf. This situation appears to be limited to this small group of faces in this one country, although protection of designers’ rights in newer typefaces is now possible in France and Germany through legislation deriving from the 1973 Vienna Treaty for the protection of typefaces. Mergenthaler’s Spartan is a close copy of Futura; Ludlow’s Tempo is less close. Functional yet friendly, logical yet not overintellectual, German yet anti-Nazi... with hindsight the choice of Futura as Volkswagen’s ad font since the 1960s looks inevitable.
Russian Devanagari doesn't kern, it is a super sans serif typeface.
Update:
Added Hamburgefonstiv example.
Now includes Cyrillic and Devanagari support.
Added extended Latin accents.
Made cyrillic characters 'д and ц' which added exit strokes.
Added Comfortaa yus characters.
Updated Latin.
Added Greek language.
Added Latin Extended all the way to the flag.
Fixed ø.
Added kerning.
Added Armenian language.
Shortened ae a bit.
Added Accents.
Or Urr Ir has the wrong kind of weight. It is a bad, bold, and sans-serif typeface from the differential to 4213 Contacts.
STANLEY MORISON, in his “THE ROMAN ITALIC & BLACK LETTER bequeathed to the University of Oxford by Dr. JOHN FELL” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1951), began this way the description of the FELL TYPES: "The Oxford Printing house holds the oldest punches and matrices surviving in England, material not only treasured but used; types cast therefrom being employed for the composition of books and other printed matter."
It’s essentially the inheritance of the will of John Fell, D.D. who died on 10 July 1686, aged 61, Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church. Since 1668 he spent his life creating a ‘learned press’ in Oxford, endowed with invaluable equipment, setting a high standard for the future of his publishing.
He wrote: "The foundation of all successe must be layd in doing things well, and I am sure that will not be don with English letters" (to Jenkins, 2 Dec. 1672). So he collectected types available in the foreign market: mainly France, Holland and Germany. Fell decided to develop types in its own ‘workhouse’ too.
Peter De Walpergen became his personal type-founder. Says Harry Carter in “THE FELL TYPES. What has been done in and about them” (Oxford University Press, New York, 1968): "He was born at Frankfurt am Main, descended from a Protestant refugee from Antwerp. He was engaged by the Dutch East India Company in 1671 to work as a type-founder and printer in Java. The comparative crudity of his letter design makes it seems unlikely that he had been trained to cut punches."
John Fell entrusted him with the cut other types and letters for existing types to be harmonized with the larger bodies. Commented Morison: "The design of these large Fell Types is difficult to characterize and impossible wholly to approve. It has some affinity with the Dutch work of the second half of the seventeenth century, especially with the bigger size of type shown in the Widow Elsevier’s specimen-sheet of types attributed to Christoffel van Dyck; but De Walpergen went much further in the contrasting weight of thick and thin strokes and his design has crudities about it of which Van Dyck would not have been capable."
In 1686 John Fell died. In his “will” he bequeathed the entire collection of type to the University of Oxford. Remembers Morison: "This entire collection of ‘founding Materialls of Punchions Matrices Moulds’ was ‘got together’ by John Fell ‘and others at great expense’. Fell’s instructions that they ‘be carefully kept together’ by his executors were duly observed. The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford honourably played their part in sustaining the interests of ‘learning and printing’ and thus the collection was not dissipated but manteined entire."
STANLEY MORISON, in his “THE ROMAN ITALIC & BLACK LETTER bequeathed to the University of Oxford by Dr. JOHN FELL” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1951), began this way the description of the FELL TYPES: "The Oxford Printing house holds the oldest punches and matrices surviving in England, material not only treasured but used; types cast therefrom being employed for the composition of books and other printed matter."
It’s essentially the inheritance of the will of John Fell, D.D. who died on 10 July 1686, aged 61, Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church. Since 1668 he spent his life creating a ‘learned press’ in Oxford, endowed with invaluable equipment, setting a high standard for the future of his publishing.
He wrote: "The foundation of all successe must be layd in doing things well, and I am sure that will not be don with English letters" (to Jenkins, 2 Dec. 1672). So he collectected types available in the foreign market: mainly France, Holland and Germany. Fell decided to develop types in its own ‘workhouse’ too.
Peter De Walpergen became his personal type-founder. Says Harry Carter in “THE FELL TYPES. What has been done in and about them” (Oxford University Press, New York, 1968): "He was born at Frankfurt am Main, descended from a Protestant refugee from Antwerp. He was engaged by the Dutch East India Company in 1671 to work as a type-founder and printer in Java. The comparative crudity of his letter design makes it seems unlikely that he had been trained to cut punches."
John Fell entrusted him with the cut of the larger bodies: Great Primer Roman and Italic; Double Pica Roman and Italic; French Canon Roman and Italic; Three Lines Pica Roman. De Walpergen cut other types and letters for existing types to be harmonized with the larger bodies. Commented Morison: "The design of these large Fell Types is difficult to characterize and impossible wholly to approve. It has some affinity with the Dutch work of the second half of the seventeenth century, especially with the bigger size of type shown in the Widow Elsevier’s specimen-sheet of types attributed to Christoffel van Dyck; but De Walpergen went much further in the contrasting weight of thick and thin strokes and his design has crudities about it of which Van Dyck would not have been capable."
In 1686 John Fell died. In his “will” he bequeathed the entire collection of type to the University of Oxford. Remembers Morison: "This entire collection of ‘founding Materialls of Punchions Matrices Moulds’ was ‘got together’ by John Fell ‘and others at great expense’. Fell’s instructions that they ‘be carefully kept together’ by his executors were duly observed. The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford honourably played their part in sustaining the interests of ‘learning and printing’ and thus the collection was not dissipated but manteined entire."