Avenir (typeface)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Typeface | Avenir |
|---|---|
| Category | Sans-serif |
| Classifications | Geometric sans-serif |
| Designer(s) | Adrian Frutiger |
| Foundry | Mergenthaler Linotype Company |
| Date released | 1988 |
Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, and released by Mergenthaler Linotype Company. The typeface is now licensed by Monotype Imaging.
The name Avenir is French for future, and takes inspiration from early geomeric sans-serif typefaces Erbar (1926) designed by Jakob Erbar, and Futura (1927) designed by Paul Renner. Frutiger intended Avenir to be a more organic, humanist interpretation of these highly geometric types. While similarities can be seen with Futura , the two-story lowercase a is more like Erbar, and also recalls Frutiger's earlier namesake typeface Frutiger.
Avenir was originally released in 1988 with three weights, each with a Roman and oblique version, and used Frutiger's two-digit weight and width convention for names: 45 (book); 46 (book oblique); 55 (text weight); 56 (text weight oblique); and, 75 (bold) and 76 (bold oblique). The typeface family was later expanded to six weights, each with a Roman and oblique version.
Contents |
[edit] Avenir Next
In 2004 Frutiger, together with in-house Linotype typeface designer Akira Kobayashi, reworked the Avenir family to address on-screen display issues. The result was titled Avenir Next. The typeface family was increased to 24: 6 weights, each with a Roman and italic version, in 2 widths: normal and condensed. Frutiger's numbering system was abandoned in favor of more conventional weight names. The glyph set was expanded to include small caps, old style figures, subscripts and superscripts, ligatures. However, OpenType Com version of the font has not been produced.
[edit] Usage
Avenir was immediately successful in print publishing. An improvement of hinting in Avenir Next has made for improved on-screen display, even in smaller point sizes. The city of Amsterdam uses Avenir extensively in its graphic identity.
BBC Two has also begun to use Avenir as its main corporate font for its channel logo and identity, another shift away from the once universal use of the Gill Sans font across all of the BBC's output.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport uses Avenir extensively as a part of their way-finding signage and brand identity.
Key Bank has begun using Avenir in their advertising and signage.
Avenir is used by the Japan Airlines group quite extensively, including the words JAPAN AIRLINES painted on the side of the aircraft.
[edit] References
- Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
- Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
- Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
