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

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 1954Frutiger 1968Helvetica 1957

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. Frutiger (the font) was designed almost 30 years after Adrian Frutiger designed Univers. When Frutiger created Univers he was 28 and perhaps a little nervous having such a large commission. The perfection of Univers can come across, to some, as rigid and strict while Frutiger is relaxed and more human.

Frutiger was originally designed for Roissy Airport in the early 1970s before it was renamed Paris Charles de Gaulle. As airport signage it had to look clear and concise on boards and signs with different background colors, it had to be legible from far away. It had to be something you saw, registered as not awful—perhaps even a bit helpful, and then, moving on, you felt sure of yourself and your destination.

Apparently if you’re in Europe it is hard to avoid but here in the states we just can’t let go of our Swiss friend, Helvetica.

Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland. Their intentions were to create a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market.

As I said before, it was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk and the goal of the designers for this typeface was to create something that was “neutral, with great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.” I think they succeeded, no?

Now, after the success of Univers, Neue Haas Grotesk was reworked into a larger family of typefaces. In 1960, the typeface’s name was changed to Helvetica in order to make it more marketable internationally. It was initially suggested that the type be called ‘Helvetia’ which is the original Latin name for Switzerland. This was ignored by Eduard Hoffmann as he decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to name a type after a country. He then decided on ‘Helvetica’ as this meant ‘Swiss’ as opposed to ‘Switzerland’.

How often do you see Helvetica in one day? Do you think you can go a day without seeing it? Type designer Cyrus Highsmith tried to do just that: He ran an informal experiment: to avoid the typeface Helvetica for a day.

He banned himself from buying anything branded in that font and from traveling on any form of transport with Helvetica signage. As he’s a New Yorker, that included the local subway system. If he happened to come across anything in the typeface, he would look away.

Not so hard, right? Wrong. Helvetica cropped up much more often than Mr. Highsmith had expected.

He knew to avoid the Internet, and had taken the precautionary measure of erasing Helvetica from the font menu on his computer. But he hadn’t reckoned on spotting it on the washing instruction labels of his clothes, his television remote control, a bus timetable or the stock market tables in The New York Times.

Another problem was finding a Helvetica-free way of paying for whatever he needed to buy during the day, as the forbidden typeface not only appeared on his credit cards but on the newest U.S. dollar bills. After a long day of trying to avoid Helvetica he posed the question: “Do you need type to live?” The answer of course is no, not in the way one needs food and water. But do you need Helvetica to conduct contemporary urban activity? That’s harder to answer.

Now I, personally, am not a huge fan of any of the afore-mentioned clean, chilly, logical, neutral, unendingly ubiquotous fonts: Univers, Frutiger, and Helvetica. I have tried to use them but they’re just not for me. Out of the three I’ve used Helvetica the most but when it comes time for me to choose a sans serif typeface they aren’t my first choice. Maybe it is because of what I design and who I work for. Both Yolanda and I are both big fans of wood type. I think we like the warmth and irregularity of the letters. I don’t know if any of you know her but she is neither cold nor is she Swiss.

What we do like is Franklin Gothic. Named for the the prolific American printer, Benjamin Franklin, this font was designed in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. Notice the word, “Gothic” here instead of “Grotesque.” This is another increasingly archaic term meaning “sans serif.”

1902! Wow, that was a long time ago, and so far before the geometrics and the other neo-grotesques like Futura, Helvetica, Frutiger, and Univers. It was chugging along just fine in its time but then around the 1930s it’s popularity was eclipsed by the new European fonts. It didn’t stay down for long though and has been back in regular use ever since the early 1950s.

I’m not sure if you have ever noticed but all these typefaces are actually very different. They really do each have their own personality. Let’s look at the differences between these letters.

The personality of any letter is most often seen in the lower case g and the lower case a within a font. Also, as in Baskerville’s swashy letter Q, you can see where type designers take some extra liberties, have some fun.

Another characteristic of sans serif typefaces is the lowercase letter i. Some have perfectly square dots over the stroke, some have circles. In the Univers example here notice how the square “dot” is wider than the stroke of the letter “i” isn’t that strange? Same goes for punctuation. These things might seem small to you but when you are looking to choose a typeface they suddenly become very important.

While there are hundreds, thousands, of sans serif typefaces out there for you to choose from they all basically started with the ones we’ve just talked about. Currently the superstar typeface of the moment is: Gotham.

Gotham was created in 2000 by New York based Hoefler & Frere-Jones (the designers, also, of the Didot revival used in Harper’s Bazaar which we talked about last week) for the men’s magazine GQ.

They were told to create something “masculine, new, and fresh.”

As the story goes type designer Tobias Frere-Jones walked around the city taking pictures, recording, not just for this commission but also for himself, every interesting letter or sign block south of 14th street. Apparently he took over 3500 pictures. His goal was not just to find inspiration for this new commission but also to preserve what he saw as a dying artfrom: REAL SIGNS with REAL LETTERING, not just something spat out using a default typeface from your computer. One of his main influences for Gotham was the seemingly plain, geometric lettering from New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal.

“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 flavor from that.”—Tobais Frere-Jones

In drawing Gotham, Frere-Jones seems to have done two things: he created a geometric-looking typeface, yet he also applied human warmth to it allowing the letters to escape the grid wherever necessary. Doing this gave the type such an interesting and distinctly American flavor. It is clearly NOT Swiss or German. The starkness of Univers does not exist here. I can see geometry within this typeface but it does not seem as mathy as Futura or Erbar.

Now, we all know what happened after 2002 when GQ’s exclusive license expired: Gotham just exploded and you now see it everywhere, not just in the Obama campaign graphics. It has been used in newspapers, corporate logos, movie posters, and packaging for brands like Coca-Cola, Netflix, Crest, and countless others.

What about the other typefaces? Well Futura is just everywhere. It was Stanley Kubrick’s favorite typeface, perfect for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Speaking of space, it is the typeface used for the plaque ON THE MOON commerating the American triumph of landing on the moon. We know about IKEA and how they went from special to non-descript. One of my favorite Futura uses was as a car name: Volkswagon used Futura in their print ads but they also designed the world’s first gull-wing-door vehicle and called it: Futura.

The inspiration to all, or most, of the sans serif typefaces, Akzidenz-Grotesk, is still in use today. This font with Georgia are the official fonts of the American Red Cross. All American Red Cross publications must be printed in Akzidenz-Grotesk or Georgia fonts.

When I first started working at George magazine the art director insisted on using two very old fashioned typefaces: Akzidenz-Grotesk (German) and Antique Olive (French). Later we decided to create more of an identity for ourselves and took on the typeface Interstate. It originally was used on highway signs by the Federal Highway Administration but in the early 1990s it was digitized by Tobias Frere-Jones and now we see it everywhere: Citibank, Southwest Airlines, the Weather Channel. What we did at George was we took the original and made it our own. We had it redrawn to give it as many varieties as Univers so that we could use it throughout the entire magazine for not just display type but for body copy as well.

I wasn’t going to dive into all the myriad places you can find Helvetica in the world today because it’s just everywhere, it even has it’s own documentary film, but I did find out some interesting things; I’m guessing some of you already know this: In 2011, one of Google’s April Fool’s Day jokes centered around the use of Helvetica. If a user attempted to search for the term “Helvetica” using the search engine the results would be displayed in the font Comic Sans.

While we can see Helvetica in the corporate identites of products we see and use every day such as: American Airlines, American Apparel, Comme des Garçons, Evian, Intel, Lufthansa, Nestlé and Toyota we can also spot that font on the flags fluttering from the United Nations Refugees’ trucks, the album sleeve of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” and all of the signage on the New York subway system.

Interestingly New York’s MTA did not start off with Helvetica but it was not adopted as the official font for signage until 1989. The standard font from 1970 until 1989 was Standard Medium, an Akzidenz Grotesk-like sans-serif. Every once in a while you can still find Helvetica look-a-likes, including Arial, in addition to some old remaining signs in Medium Standard, and a few anomalous signs in Helvetica Narrow.

Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typefaces.

What do the Onion and MoMA have in common: They both use Franklin Gothic! Franklin Gothic is the official typeface of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the printed version of The Onion uses Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed for all headline text.

The letter tiles in the American and Canadian versions of Scrabble currently uses the Franklin Gothic Book font.The film Rocky’s title is Franklin Gothic Heavy.Lady Gaga’s cover text on her second album, The Fame Monster.Van Morrison’s cover text on his single Brown Eyed Girl. And, last but not least, personal shout out: LOOK3 official typeface!