Good typography is invisible
With over 100,000 different type faces available right now and over 560 years of type face designing there is a large number of influential and important font designers to research. I was lucky to find the a great guide to typefaces: the “Periodic table of type faces” from , which lists 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces today. It not only gives the name of the designer and the year when it was first published, but also groups it into families and classes like serif, sans-serif, display, grotesque, didone or geometric, which helps to get a clearer picture. I found that a good start for research and googled many of the mentioned designers. I stopped at Erik Spiekermann (the type”face” behind Audi, Bosch, Sky TV, Nokia, …) Matthew Carter (internet/screen standard fonts Verdana/Tahoma, Georgia), Max Miedinger (Neue Haas Grotesk = Helvetica), Edward Johnston (ITC Johnston, P22 Underground for the London tube), Paul Renner (Futura), Tobias Frere-Jones (Gotham - Obama election campaign 2008, Asphalt Black), Adrian Frutiger (Linotype Didot, Univers, Frutiger, Avenir), Stanley Morison (Times). These are mainly type faces which

serve in headlines as well as in the body copy. If chosen for the right reasons (style of typeface fitting style of article, text, ...) the quality of these fonts have a chance to deliver what the Craig Ward poster on top of this text asks typography to do – to be invisible – meaning to fit a purpose so perfect that it seems to belong to it as part of its nature. In most cases people should not talk about the type faces and graphic design, but the message it transports. I also researched some typographers, who became known mainly for their display typefaces: Luke Lucas (Lukano, Aeroplane, Sleaze, Inline Hell), Steve Buffoni (Nu Classic Typo, Shock), Stefan Chinof (Adict, Typography) To learn from example I choose to look further into three fonts and their designers which have many similarities. I wanted to find out why they still send different messages and how they achieve that. I choose three very successful typographers and their products:

Paul Renner Edward Johnston Tobias Frere-Jones

– – -

Futura Johnston Sans Gotham

Paul Renner (Germany) - FUTURA
Paul Renner created Futura starting in 1924 and released it 1927. It was commissioned by the Bauer Type Foundry. Its a geometric sans serif typeface. Renner's idea was to get rid of all unecessary decorative elements. That very much reflected the zeitgeist especially in Germany and France where the avant-gardists art movements of the early 20th century were very much reflected for instance in “Dada” around Kurt Schwitters, “Expressionism” Franz Marc and friends and the “Bauhaus”-movement around Walter Gropius. The name itself seems to be a strong reminder of “futurism” and its manifestos to turn your back on old fashioned, now meaningless art traditions and re-invent art - based strictly on functionality. Futura follows that. Like the Bauhaus style it is based on geometric shapes to give a simple and efficient look that is clearly legible. If you look close you can easily see these simply geometric forms it is made of: circles, triangles and squares. I coloured some of the main features: One which I like a lot and which seems quite unique compared to other san serif fonts are the sharply pointed terminals of the capitals (A,M,N,V,W). They clearly reach out of the cap-line and the base-line. At first that seemed odd to me, because the nearly 2/3 ration between the height of the upper and lower cases plus the equal weight of the stroke bring a sense of settlement to the type face. Having the sharp terminal sticking out counteracts that a bit. But coming back to Renner's and the Bauhaus ideas I think that brings more depth to the font. It is very clear and functional in its harmony a confident straight or circular strokes, but it is also confident ready to take on other fonts and maybe the worlddue to the terminal design.

I found early sketches by Renner, which show the roots in geometric shapes even clearer, but interestingly also miss the pointedness. That means that Renner had added that in the process of altering.
Futura was an instant success in Germany and became later one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th and

also 21st century. It as 15 type styles of it. Over 40 real or variations of Futura are available online. It was used for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The paque left there featured its message in Futura. IKEA used it for a very long time and most of the Volkswagen advertisement features it as well. Here are some more examples everybody will recognise:

In music terms Paul Renner would probably be called a “One hit wonder”. He had the massive success with Futura and partly with Plak, but never was never really able to repeat that. He had studied art in Berlin, Munich and Karlsruhe. He was early on interested in typography and taught this subject at the Frankfurt Art school for graphic advertising and typography, when he worked on Futura (1925 till 1926). He later taught on other art schools including the National Masterschool for German book printer. Apart from his teaching he was part of a heated debate about German typography when Antiqua and Fraktura fans fought against each other. His position was that even though the Fraktura allowed more more economic printing as it needed less space, its tradition of being used in court printers of German monarchs discredited it to much. After the German revolution from 1918 there was a strong interest to re-invent Germany and find a new language in art and applied art. When Futura was commissioned the brief asked for something “artistically liberating” /Just my type/ Renner was arrested by the Nazis in 1933 and lost his job. He emigrated to Switzerland and concentrated mostly on painting and only doing some small typographer jobs. Other Renner fonts Plak(1928), Ballade(1938), Renner Antiqua(1939)

left: Plak Black

(Edward) Johnston Sans
Edward Johnston had initially studied medicine, but like Steve Jobs developed an interest in calligraphy while at university. Both did great jobs for modern typography. Job's 1984 Apple Mac was the first computer with an extended choice of fonts. Edward Johnston was equally influential. Having studied old writing techniques at the British Museum and British Library he started teaching calligraphy in 1899 – Being only 27 he was the first head in the new established department of the Central School of Arts and Craft in London. One of his first students was Eric Gill, who would go on to design Gill Sans, which was once praised as the English Helvetica and was strongly influenced by Johnston's own most popular typeface “Johnston Sans”, also called “Underground”, on which Johnston worked together with Gill (Gill got 10% of the profits). Before I look further into his most famous typeface here some more facts about him: Like Paul Renner he also wrote several articles and books about calligraphy and typography. In 1906 already he published: „Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering“, which became a sort of standard work for people working in the field of calligraphy. In 1921 he founded „The Society of Scribes and Illuminators“ (SSI), one of the most established and reputable calligraphy-societies in the world.
Other (than Johnston Sans) typesfaces by him are: • • Hamlet Cranach (for a German editor) Imprint

•

Johnston Sans
Johnston Sans was originally commissioned in 1915 by Frank Pick of London Underground Railways. In 1913 Pick, the commercial director realised that the London Underground would benefit from getting rid of the ocean of different fonts that belonged to the tube system – as station signs, placards, brochures and so on. Pick started to think about a new concept at that time = branding. Originally called "Underground", it later became simply "Johnston Sans". The typeface was used for all trains and buses as well for signs and all branding material and of course also for the famous route-plans Henry Beck came up with.
Pick's brief included the demand that the typeface should support the plans for the tube. He had an antiVictorian sense of design and wanted a font that would unmistakeably be associated with the its time: straightforward, manly, each letter being a strong symbol. This is what Johnston delivered:

Here is the Futura is comparison to it:

From what I wrote earlier we know that both typographers had sort of the same brief – to come up with a modern, strong, confident and anti traditional typeface. Both type faces were used for that reason in public spaces. Johnston Sans for the London Tube and Futura for all signgs and orienting systems in Frankfurt/Main. I thought it would be good to compare the different interpretations of the brief. Since they were not done at the same time, we can assume that Renner knew of Johnston Sans and the other many san serif fonts Johnston had developed in the early 1920ies. Edward Johnston had worked for German companies as well and his books was published in Germany Both type faces look very clear and confident. They look very much alike (the images I found represent not necessary the same weight). Striking in both cases are the perfectly circual “o”. Where Renner takes the theme of circles all the way through including the “a” and the dot on the “i” Johnston deviates from it “a”, “g” and especially the rotated little i-dot or better little i-square. That instantly adds some playfulness to the strictness. In general the Johnston font appear less rigorous and more approachable. Why is that? On the image to the left I put example letters from both typefaces next to each other to discover more similarities and differences (Johnson = always left. Equal is the proportion between the upper and lower part of the capital letters (see first line) Different is that Futura stays with the geometric theme more. The capital fit perfectly in a rectangle (red), whereas Johnston is more forgiving – giving the B a bigger lower bowl, shrinking the middle horizontal strokes of the E and so on. Another difference is the difference between x height and cup height. In Futura's case the x height is nearly exactly 2/3 of the height of the capitals. Johnston Sans lower cases are significantly taller, giving a body-text more of a calmer appearance. Calmness comes also from the fact that Johnston Sans is not as compressed as Futura. Because of that it looks more relaxed. Futura is in comparison like pressed air – sort of ready to expand, erupt any moment. The most significant differences are visible in the treatment of the the lower “j”, “a”, “g” and “y”. Paul Renner continues the appliance of geometric principles. The “j” is a straight line down, only differing from the “i” by leaving the baseline. The Futura “g” uses the same half-circle element to form the bottom bit (ascender) as it uses to form the arch of the “n” or “m”

- the same can be said for the “a”. The Johnston “g” is as much out of the general principles of the typeface as the “a”. They don't follow the normal rules. I think they are a concession to traditional calligraphy/typography. It adds sympathy and warmth to the type face and welcomes doubters in, rather than fighting them. That is what Futura seems to do – it is sharper, more consequent and has the spiky terminals. I think that the type faces both do what the brief wanted them to achieve. I also think that the differences very much represent what the differences between Britain and Germany were at that time. As said before Germany just experienced a revolution which got rid of the Kaiser and much of the establishment. In art and politics different movements were fighting for dominance (communists, social democrats. National socialists). The lost war added to the sense of radical change. For me the typeface represents that perfectly. It is hard, sharp and uncompromising when it comes to principles. Britain also experienced a time of change – women's right to vote,..) But here it was more of an evolution, less confrontational. That is what Johnston Sans reflects. It is out there to compromise and not to win a fight. Maybe for that reason it got popular so fast. It was considered a people's font, not associated with political manifestos or class or learning or whatever.

Tobias Frere-Jones from Hoefler & Frere-Jones / Gotham
Tobias Frere-Jones became famous by the claim that his typeface “Gotham” won Barack Obama the 2008 US elections. The font was originally a commission by the men's magazine GQ. In the Helvetica documentary FrereJones describes the brief his agency was given: Their initial brief was almost entirely aesthetic, where they wanted a sans serif made on a geometric structure. They would masculine and new and fresh and be versatile for the various parts of the magazine.” His associate Jonathan Hoefler adds that the editors and magazinedesigners had a sort of “dual agenda” and wanted something “very very fresh and yet very established, to have a kind of credible voice to it.” Frere-Jones adds: “We both grew up in the city and independently we've walked around the streets and earmarked pieces of lettering or signage that we thought would be a good seed, or starting point for a project somewhere down the line. And we both noticed the letting on the Port Authority Bus Terminal up on 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. The lettering over the front door is this very plain geometric letter, but its not the type of letter that a type designer would make. It's the kind of letter an engineer would make. It was born outside of type design, in some other world and has a very distinct flavour from that.” /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow6ajKO0XsM/ The last bit is a quite interesting because it is illustrated with the bus terminal lettering. The first thing that came to my mind was: Look there is the Futura spike at the circular “O” again and the low from the Johnston Sans “A” and so on looked exactly like the Futura, Sans, which were of course designed by

the “M”, there is horizontal stroke and so on. It all Johnston and Gill typographers.

The fact that Tobias Frere-Jones assumed that letters like that were born outside design might be an indicator that they were seldom used at the time of the briefing. For that reason Gotham might have appeared as new and fresh as it was often described. Looking at Futura, Johnston Sans and Gotham together, I think that FrereJones managed to take the harmonic elements from both and while making it less of a compromise than Johnston Sans.

Futura:

Johnston Sans:

Gotham:

all three typefaces compared (from left to right: Johnston Sans, Futura, Gotham):

Gotham is follows Futura with its stricter geometric approach (see first line right). All capitals fit in geometric frames, a feature that Johnston Sans compromised, but that give a greater feeling of construction, clarity and modernity. Gotham has less variation in the width of different fonts than the other two. That calms the design down (see comparison of B, same for other cases like E or S). The horizontal strokes like with the “A” or “R” are further down. Especially the A looks like an enormously stable and trustworthy ladder – other than the other two, especially Futura. The lower stroke gives the impression as if the Gotham “A” has a wider angle – even though that is not true. The x height of the lower cases is as big as it is in Johnston's design. At the same time the ascender is much shorter than the other two (see comparison of “p”, “y” and “B,b”). Doing that brings the lower cases much nearer to the dimensions of the upper cases and produces a more relaxed feeling. I think that Gotham has more of the innovative character and matter of principle character of Futura, but the same relaxing and the calming nature of Johnston – even though the calmness and agree-ability is achieved with different methods (having wider cases, less heightdifference between lower and upper cases, lower horizontal strokes for the sense of more stability,...) In “Just my type” Simon Garfield describes the qualities that let the Obama team choose this typeface for their 2008 election campaign. Gotham fonts are “notable for their solidity and durability”. They also have “unremarkability and inoffensibility, a type consciously chosen to suggest forward-thinking without frightening the horses” /BBC4 - Book of the week, episode 5/ Frere-Jones and Hoefler were not involved in the Obama campaign. In 2002 the licence for the sole use of Gotham in GQ expired and the typeface was publicly available. I don't know what part Gotham really played in Obama winning the elections. After looking a little bit into it I can see what qualities Gotham has compared to the other fonts I choose for my research into typographers and their work, but there were for sure many many many more decisive elements to the campaign than the font alone. Frere-Jones and Hoefler designed many more good fonts. I like especially the following ones. They all seemed to also be inspired by their street-sign collection:

Asphalt Black (looks grafitti inspired)

Interstate (inspired by Highway signs)