PAUL RENNER

:
FUTURA
PAULRENNER
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TableOfContents
1:Introduction
2:AboutRenner
4:TheBirthofFutura
6:FuturaandModernArt
8:WWIIandFutura
11:Conclusion
Everyone nows how important a strong
typeface can be. Weather you are typing a document or designing a logo for
mass-production, your use of type must be
dynamic, readable, and memorable. “The
art of designing type began in the West
around 1455 when Johannes Gutenberg
perfected the craft of printing from
individual pieces of type1”. From Serif to
San Serif typefaces there are many options
and styles to chose from while creating
your design.
Every type face has its own unique characteristics that separates it form one another.
Weather it is the serif, the change in stroke,
leg, the curve in the stem or arm, or as
simple as the lack of complexity of the
letter forms, every font is unique (Image 1).
When choosing your font one must keep
in mind who will be viewing your design.
If the design is for a building header such
as a church or government office, a strong
and bold serif font with a classic look and
feel is a great choice. These types of fonts
date back to the early Greek and Roman
times and can be found on many Roman
Architectures still standing. The use of
these on modern forms in society are
purposely done so to associate them selves
to the power and distinguished glory that is
thought of in conjunction with Greek and
Roman tradition. If one is designing for
use on the world wide web or a print document the wise choice is the use of a Sans
Serif typeface. The san serif type faces
provide easier readability to the audience
especially when used in small print or on a
back-lit surface such as a computer screen.
By the twentieth century type foundries
began to pump out sans serif typefaces
due to there popularity in poster design,
display, and the modern art movements of
the time2.
Shoulder
Stroke
Tail
Image 1
1 Craig, James. Designing with Type. 5th ed. New York:
Watson-Guptill, 2006.
2 Craig
PA UL RE N N E R: 1
introduction
PA UL RE N N E R: 2
About Renner
One of the great type designers of the
twentieth century was Paul Renner.
Renner was born in Germany in 1878 to a
father who acted much like a theologian to
all of his five sons. Renner would receive
a highly involved and well rounded education but when he finished his schooling he
had no clear ideas of his own and felt as
if he was existing in “an artificial world
that stood alongside the real one.3” After
his education Renner found him self as a
commissioned painter in Munich. The
popular magazine Simplicissimus
(Image 2) was know to commission Renner
for his Landscape paintings. In 1907
Renner would settle down with his wife
Anne and continue to work on his commissions to support his new and growing
family now working as a book designer at
Georg Muller Verlag, where he oversaw
287 new publications in 1913 alone (Image
3). “A day when he did nothing, at least
read nothing serious, was for him a day
sadly lost4”
3 Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner : the art of typography.
London: Hyphen, 1998
4 Burke
Image 3
Image 2
While working with Muller, Renner would
focus his attention to detail on trying to
find a working balance between type and
illustration. Renner would eventually
find himself also working as a teacher at
the printing school in his town of Munich
along side Georg Trump and Jan
Tschichold. Eventually in 1933 Renner
would be dismissed of his duties as a teacher when the Nazis came to power.
“A day when he did nothing,
at least read nothing serious,
was for him a day sadly lost”
While still working on trying to find the
balance between typography and design
Renner began to study preexisting fonts
and there usefulness along with the history
associated with them. Renner began to
study preexisting fonts and there usefulness
along with the history associated with
them. Renner spent much time studying
the use and effectiveness of gothic and its
curves. He saw the benefit of the curves
as they save space when typing compound
Image 5
5 Burke
PA UL RE N N E R: 3
Image 4
sentence structure, but he pointed out that
this typeface was also design for luxury
and not for everyday readability and use.
Renner referred to the capitals in gothic
as “monstrosities” and refused to accept
the necessity of ugly characters in design
even though the characters met practical purposes in type (Image 4). Renner also
focused his attention to roman. He saw
roman as “ forming the trunk of the family
tree of type5”. Renner saw the capitals
of Roman a setting a base for any future
design in Wester typefaces (Image 5). He
also found evidence that Roman forms
could be linked with Charlemange, which
made Roman a more Germanic letter
form than it was gothic. From this Renner
sought to find a new balance between the
use of capitol and lower case letter forms,
One which the capitals did not led the
lowercase, instead have the letter-forms be
in harmony with one another.
PA UL RE N N E R: 4
The Birth of futura
In the 1920s Renner was commissioned
by the Bauer Foundry and released Futura
(Image 6). This sans serif typeface was
strictly geometric in form and had fifteen
different alphabets including many variations of italics and display fonts. The other
main Futura family members are: Regular,
Light, Light Oblique, Light Condensed,
Book, Book Bold, Book Oblique, Medium,
Medium Oblique, Medium Condensed,
Bold, Bold Oblique, Bold Condensed,
Semi-bold, Semi-bold Italic, Extra-bold,
Extra-bold Italic, Extra-bold Condensed,
Inline, Display and Black6 (Image 7). Futura
quickly became the most widely used
geometric font family in the twentieth
century. Renner’s development of futura
was strongly influenced by his ideals that
“designers should not merely preserve
their inheritance and pass it on to the
next generation unchanged; rather, each
generation should try to solve inherited
problems and attempt to create contemporary form true to its own time”. After the
introduction of Futura Paul Renner had
begun the age of the “New Typography7”.
6 Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner : the art of typography.
London: Hyphen, 1998
Image 7
Image 6
7 Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis.
Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. 4th ed.
Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2006.
For many years to come many designers
would base there creations and styles of
that of Renner and Futura.
Futura is a Sans Serif typeface that can
very useful and intuitive. Coming in vast
verity of widths and weights Futura is a
very complex and industrious font that is
know for its effectiveness as a display font
and is found very commonly in poster design. The strong geometric forms and the
warmth of the letters give futura a great
presence when used freestanding on the
classic graphic design grid system. Futura
has been said to be classified as “Geometrical Modernism8”. The simplicity behind
the figures and the careful reasoning used
gave form, equality, function, and
8 Fabian , Nicholas. “The Bauhaus Designer Paul Renner.” Creative Pro, 15 December 2000.
http://www.creativepro.com/article/the-bauhaus-designer-
paul-renner.
Image 8
9 Fabian , Nicholas. “The Bauhaus Designer Paul Renner.” Creative Pro, 15 December 2000.
http://www.creativepro.com/article/the-bauhaus-designer-
paul-renner.
PA UL RE N N E R: 5
feeling to the typeface. In the world of
typography, when Futura was released, the
industrial revolution came to its “logical
conclusion9”.When Renner first conceived
the typeface, Futura had many extreme alternate characteristics, which were seen as
radical geometric features from traditional
typography (Image 8). The best example of
this could be Renner’s lower case r. This
form has a solid thick spine, but it has no
beak , instead the r is finished off with the
use of a solid circle. In the beginning Bauer dropped these alternatives in fear that
the radical changes in design would harm
sales and alienate users from them. Over
time Renner revisited his designs and came
to find the classic and memorable Futura
that we know today (Image 9). Futura still
comes in many forms and the originals are
still available, but the later versions Renner
designed are the stables of great geometric
type-design.
Image 9
PA UL RE N N E R: 6
Image 10
Futura and modern art
The advent of Futura came at a time in
art history when the modernists were at
their peak. The Bauhaus and The Futurist
movement were both strong in europe and
their ideals would soon land in New York
as the dawn of the second World War was
coming. The Futurist movement was a
system of ideals that left behind the old
and wanted to forget the past. Futurism
was a far reaching art movement out of
Italy that focused on the dynamic energetic and violent character of changing
twentieth century city life. Much emphasis
was put on the powerful force and motion
of machinery combined with the contemporary fascination with speed while at the
same time denouncing the “static” art of
the past and the old-fashioned establish-
10Emily Braun “Futurist fashion: three manifestoes”.
Art Journal. . FindArticles.com. 05 Sep. 2008.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n1_v54/
ai_17012102
ment. The form in which the futurists
wrote was that of a surreal and apocalyptic
style, which painted vivid mental image
of a dark cold world and a never ending
battle between machinery, humanity, and
the past10.
In the 1909 Futurist Manifesto by F.T.
Marinetti, Marinetti speaks about youth,
strength, speed, and destruction. Destruction of the past and the institutions of
the present. They wanted to destroy the
museums and libraries that hold the ideas
and stories from the past because we don’t
need them anymore. Forget the past and
look forward. We are in a time where
humanity has the world open. “Time and
space died yesterday11”
11 Marinetti, F.T. Futurist Manifesto. 1909.
Around the time of the advent of technology and the automobile the futurists
felt humanity had opened new doors,
and should leave behind any relicts from
our past. Where culture is headed we
don’t need the “great” literature of our
ancestors or the “masterpiece” of any
classical artist. Futura was adopted by this
movement greatly due to the commonality of the ideals behind the two. Renner
left behind the curvatures of the gothic
type faces and designed something new
for his generation. The geometric design
coincided with the designs of the Futurists
and so did the simplicity (Image 10). Renner
did not use the past designs of pen made
marks with the design of Futura. Renner
left behind those and came up with his
own geometric form, much like the Futurist movement did.
Though Renner was never associated
himself with the Futurist movement, the
inspiration is to evident to ignore that they
both were inspired by the same european
time frame and events.
The Bauhaus School in Dessau also embraced the use and ideals behind Futura.
The Bauhaus School mainly worked with
design and eventually architecture and furniture production. Comparisons came be
made between the design ideas of Renner
and the Bauhaus’ Herbert Bayer, as they
both went away from paper and pen mark
designs12. The Bauhaus too was very interested in geometry and finding new logical
solutions to classical design problems (Image
11). Also like Renner the Bauhaus would
fall under scrutiny by the Nazi movement
as World War Two stirred up.
12Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner : the art of typography.
London: Hyphen, 1998.
PA UL RE N N E R: 7
Image 11
“Prior to the twentieth century, san serif
typefaces were seldom used...
By the mid-twentieth century, however
sans serif typefaces became popular”
PA UL RE N N E R: 8
WWII and futura
Image 12
When World War Two came into a full
conflict and the Europeans began to flee
there home land for their lives we saw a
mass migration to the United States. We
not only gained mass amounts of people,
we also gained the ideas they brought with
them and their talents13. There was a major shift in the arts to New York City from
europe at this time, and for a moment the
Bauhaus even set up shop in the United
States. This became a time of explosion
in design in North America, as European
designers were no creating for American
companies. The typefaces that americans
forever referred to as “Grotesk” were now
become tolerable, and were appearing
everywhere. Typefaces like Futura were
now seen by the American population
on a daily basis and was adopted by the
preexisting American designers and their
schools.
The creation of Futura changed the type
13Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis.
Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. 4th ed.
Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2006.
world forever. It is obvious that Renner
did have inspirations such as his studies
on gothic and Roman and the previous
creations such as Akzidenz Grotesk (Image 12),
but Futura worked so well for so many applications that it became the most used and
most copied geometric sans serif typeface
of the time. Futura paved the way for Helvetica, the most common typeface today
(Image 13). It shares its geometric form and
its various line weights, and most importantly its ease of readability. Helvetica has
a bit more traditional feel and look than
that of Futura which is why when it was
released in the 1950s it became so popular.
Helvetica can be seen on many websites,
documents, and posters all over the world
ad well as logos and product names, much
like Futura. It is easy to say that without
the studies and work of Renner with
Futura Helvetica would not be as dynamic
and successfully as it is.
PA UL RE N N E R: 9
Image 13
Image 14
“Time and space died yesterday”
PA UL RE N N E R: 1 0
conclusion
When Futura was initially released
designers still worked by hand, and type
was still laid out for the most part with
a press and lead lettering. The advent
of the computer has changed the design
world in so many ways, but the traditional
typefaces have not. We no longer need a
large press to make our signage, nor do we
make our display characters and posters
by hand or by lithograph (Image 14). A large
sign or mass produced magazine can easily
be constructed on a laptop computer.
However, none of this would be doable
without the use of typefaces and strong understanding of typography. Futura is still
a leading typeface in the world of design
and is more available than ever in the computer age14. Now more than ever there
are more and more styles of the type to
chose from and ways to manipulate it for
your own use. Renner’s Futura provided
a great design tool for the professional
designer when it was released, and quickly
became the popular choice for text and
display design around the world. Open a
magazine today and you will see advertis-
ers continually using the combination of
Futura Light and Futura Extra Bold because of the stylish design, elegance, and
commanding power to the viewer (Image 15).
In short the effectiveness of Paul Renners’
Futura can be summed up by this: “Good
text faces for the screen are therefore as a
rule faces with low contrast, a large torso,
open counters, sturdy terminals, and slab
serifs or no serifs at all. (And he might have
added ‘a large x-height.’)15”
14Forrest. “The Best Futura Money Can Buy.” Typomancy.
15 Bringhurst, Robert. Elements of Typographic Style,
http://web.archive.org/web/20060210114255/http://www.
The. 2nd ed. Vancouver, BC: Hartley & Marks, 1997.
typomancy.org/2005/02/07/the-best-futura-money-can-buy/
(5 September 2008).
Image 15
Sources
Forrest. “The Best Futura Money Can Buy.” Typomancy.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060210114255/http://www.typomancy.org/2005/02/07/the-best-futura-money-can-buy/ (5
September 2008).
Bringhurst, Robert. Elements of Typographic Style, The. 2nd ed. Vancouver, BC:
Hartley & Marks, 1997.
Craig, James. Designing with Type. 5th ed. New York:
Watson-Guptill, 2006.
Foster, Hal , Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin Buchloh. Art Since 1900. Vol. 1.
New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. 4th ed. Hoboken, N.J.:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2006.
Burke, Christopher. Paul Renner : the art of typography. London:
Hyphen, 1998.
BookDesignCoverDesignTypographyBy
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