What Is a Sans Serif Font? When and How Should We Use One?
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What is a sans serif font? When and how should we use one? Sans serif typefaces are all around us. They are information. They are direction. They are simple yet direct. They get to the point. And if you think they all look the same or that they are boring then think again because sans serif typefaces have WAY more personality than you think. A sans serif font is exactly what it says it is: a font without serifs. So what if you take these serifs, these feet, away? The font Akzidenz-Grotesk is said to be just that. If you have a typeface such as Didot or Walbaum and you take the serifs off you’d have something like Akzidenz-Grotesk which is an early sans serif typeface originally conceived circa 1880 as Royal Grotesk from a Berlin foundry for the scientific publications of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. It wasn’t until the fall of the Prussian monarchy in 1918 that Royal Grotesk was renamed and published as part of the Akzidenz-Grotesk font family. Contemporary versions of Akzidenz-Grotesk descend from a late-1950s project, directed by Günter Gerhard Lange. He enlarged the typeface family, adding a larger character set, but retaining all of the idiosyncrasies of the 1898 face. Under the direction of Günter Gerhard Lange, he had designed 33 font styles to the Akzidenz-Grotesk family. It was one of the first sans serif typefaces to be widely used and influenced many other neo-grotesque typefaces after 1950 such as the very famous Helvetica. This font preceded Helvetica by almost 40 years. Akzidenz-Grotesk is commonly mistaken for the Helvetica and Univers designs yet they are very different. All three typefaces are grotesque sans serifs; however, differences lie in subtle proportional and weight changes. Now, I keep saying this word, “Grotesque.” What does it mean? Grotesque, or Grotesk in Germany, is a style of sans-serif typeface from the 19th century. There are two different kinds of grotesque. There is Grotesque and there is neo-grotesque. The grotesque fonts are: Azkidenz-Grotesk, Gill Sans, Franklin Gothic, News Gothic. They have a warmth and humanity to them that the neo-grotesques don’t. A lot of them are based on Roman character shapes and proportions. Often each weight within the typeface family retains a distinct character of its own. An example of neo-grotesque fonts are: Helvetica, Univers, and Arial. These have less of a human touch to them. They look modern, neutral, and perhaps a little cold. In the case of Gill Sans (a grotesque typeface) this is a font that has a relatively small x-height, smaller than Futura and a lot smaller than the Helvetica or Frutiger. A generous x-height is usually considered one of the prerequisites for a typeface to rank high on the legibility scale, but Gill Sans is an exception. Because the characters of the Gill Sans alphabet are based on classic roman letterforms and not geometric shapes, they are remarkably legible. Gill Sans also has a more pronounced contrast in stroke widths than most serifless fonts, which makes it more readable than its monoweight cousins. Now, Gill Sans, the typeface, did not start out as much. In fact, it was just a sign. Over a bookshop. In Bristol, England. Now known as the “Helvetica of England” this typeface, drawn by Eric Gill, was inspired by the famous calligrapher Edward Johnston who created the typeface for the London Underground. Eric Gill apprenticed for Johnston and even collaborated for a time on the London Underground commission. In creating his Gill Sans typeface Eric Gill wanted them to be “fool-proof—with nothing left to the imagination.” Eric Gill attempted to make the ultimate legible sans-serif text face. He did this by creating a variable width font whereas Johnston’s designs have a monowidth—all strokes are the same width. While it is not the typeface used for the London Underground it is still considered to be very very English. It THE font for the Church of England, the British Government, and the BBC. Now, while you can consider this font to be a grotesque font it was also designed to be a response, in a way, to the geometric typefaces that were being designed in Germany: Erbar, Futura, Kabel. Erbar was the first geometric sans-serif typeface ever created. Designer Jakob Erbar’s started with the circle which should be pretty obvious when you look at any of the grometric typefaces. Jakob Erbar wanted to make a printing typeface that would be legible yet free of all individual characteristics. The success of his font led to the creation of many new geometric sans serif faces by competing foundries, namely, and most famously: Futura. Futura was designed by Paul Renner in 1927. It too was based on geometric principles but also seemed to be heavily influenced by the Bauhaus aesthetic but Renner was never a part of the Bauhaus movement. Now, with the serif typefaces we have talked about there seems to be this purity in form. Sure they all seem to have a version for italics and boldfaces but that’s about it until you get to the moderns and the slab serifs. This is where we start to see condensed versions like Poster Bodoni or Stymie Extra Bold Condensed, and fat versions like Stymie Extra Bold, or Clarendon Black Extended. With the sans serifs they go even further. Futura, for example, was originally cast in Light, Medium, Bold, and Bold Oblique fonts in 1928. Following this were obliques in all weights, demibolds which seem to be between the medium and the bold weights. Then came the book versions and the extra Univers 1954 Frutiger 1968 Helvetica 1957 bolds. But they didn’t stop there. One of my favorite versions of Futura is Futura Black, released in 1936, as an alternate design that uses stencil letter forms. The public safety departments (Police, Fire, EMS and others) of Boston, Massachusetts use Futura Black as a typeface for their department vehicles. The creepy yucky font that comes with all of your computers these days, Braggadocio, is based on Futura Black. I’m sure you all recognize this version of Futura: the Extra Bold Condensed. This typeface became so popular and, to some, overused, for countless corporate logos, commercial products, films and advertisements certain art directors had began boycotting its use in with a piece in the 1992 Type Director’s Club annual publication titled: “Art Directors Against Futura Extra Bold Condensed.” My favorite story about Futura, however, revolves around the Ikea logo. In 2010 Ikea changed the typeface used in its catalog from Futura to Verdana, expressing a desire to unify its branding between print and web media. Time magazine and the Associated Press ran articles on the controversy. Design industry publications joined the fray of online posts. At one point the uproar was dubbed, “Verdanagate.” The Guardian ran an article asking, “Ikea is changing its font to Verdana—causing outrage among typomaniacs. Should the rest of us care? Absolutely.” The New York Times said the change to Verdana “is so offensive to many because it seems like a slap at the principles of design by a company that has been hailed for its adherence to them.” So what’s wrong with Verdana? The main complaint seems to be that Verdana was designed — by Matthew Carter for Microsoft — to be used on screen and at small sizes, something it exceeded at and that’s great but as a designer, as someone who appreciates design and individulity I can understand why other designers, myself included, would never think to use Verdana as anything more than something to type out an email in. It is the homogenous milk of typography made for consumption by the masses. What else is consumed by the masses? Information signage. The three neo-grotesque sans serif typefaces that make up the majority of information signage are: Frutiger, Univers, and, most famously, Helvetica. These three faces are sometimes confused with each other, because each is based on the 1898 typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk. These typefaces figure prominently in the Swiss Style of graphic design. Back when Helvetica was still called Neue Haas Grotesk, a French type foundry, Deberny & Peignot, hired Adrian Frutiger to design a font they hoped would be new and revolutionary: Univers. The grand days of geometric Futura were fading away and Europe was ready for a new look. Enter, “The Best Typeface in the World.” Univers has a coolness to it, modern, swiss-european, decidely not German, English, or French. When I read about this font the words I read are: “smoothness; harmony; uniformity” but also, “chilly; and scientific.” Univers is public information: you will see it in outdoor signage: in London where Westminster adopted Univers Bold Condensed for its street signs; it’s perfect for clean information graphics: Munich chose it as the face of its 1972 Olympics; for transportation: the Paris Métro, the Mondréal Métro and the San Francisco BART all use Univers; Rand McNally and Ordinance Survey maps use Univers; Apple keyboards once used Univers until they turned to VAG Rounded in 2007. Despite being thought of as superior to Helvetica in legibility and contrast it has not achieved Helvetica’s lasting fame and superstar status. It is not the subject of t-shirts or documentary films. Frutiger, the font, is not one that Americans tend to know much about. You might have heard or it or you might have even had occasion to use it if you are a designer of information graphics but, in general, it is not used much in the states.