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.
Font Family:
· Futura BT Pro Light
· Futura BT Pro Light Italic
· Futura BT Pro Book
· Futura BT Pro Book Italic
· Futura BT Pro Medium
· Futura BT Pro Medium Italic
· Futura BT Pro Bold
· Futura BT Pro Bold Italic
· Futura BT Pro Heavy
· Futura BT Pro Heavy Italic
· Futura BT Pro Extra Black
· Futura BT Pro Extra Black Italic
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Light
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Light Italic
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Medium
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Medium Italic
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Bold
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Bold Italic
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Extra Black
· Futura BT Pro Condensed Extra Black Italic
File Size: 16.98 MB
Download now