A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O PQ R S T U V W X Y Z ABCDE F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o pq r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

This type specimin book was designed and bound by

Ingrid Schindall a s t h e f i n a l a s s i g n m e n t f o r Anthony Rutka’s Typography 1 class during the spring semester at the

Maryland Institute College of Art

May 2010All of the type used in this book is

Avenir designed in 1988 by

Adrian Frutiger

AVENIR1988A D R I A N F R U T I G E RI N G R I DS C H I N D A L L

1234567890!@#$%^&*()?+{}\

roman 60pt

This couldnotbe an outstandingnewCreation. ”

“

light 60 pt

AD R I A N

Unlike such strictly constructivist faces as Futura®, for example, the junction points of oblique-line characters such as A have been flattened.

FRUTIGER

book 12pt

roman 450 pt light 42 pt

aIn the lower-case alphabet, I have kept to the roman tradition in the form of the a, because the round-ed ’a’ as used in Futura® hinders the legibility of text through its similarity to b, d, p and q. book 12pt

roman 450pt

bc

BC

medium 225 pt

Avenir™ is intended to be nothing more nor less than a clear and clean repre-sentation of modern ty-pographical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is strictly modern and at the same time hu-mane, ie suitable refined and elegant for use in texts of any length.

Avenir™ is intended to be

nothing more nor less than

a clear and clean repre-

sentation of modern typo-

graphical trends, giving the

designer a typeface which

is strictly modern and at the

same time humane, ie suit-

able refined and elegant for

Avenir™ is intended to be nothing more nor less than a clear and clean repre-sentation of modern typo-graphical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is strictly modern and at the same time humane, ie suit-able refined and elegant for use in texts of any length.

Avenir™ is intended to be nothing more nor less than a clear and clean represen-tation of modern ty-pographical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is str ict ly modern and at the same time hu-mane, ie suitable re-f ined and elegant for use in texts of any length.

book 12p

t leading

14 tracking 0

heavy 12pt lead

ing 16 tracking

100

heav

y 1

2pt

lead

ing

12

trac

king

0b

ook

12p

t le

adin

g 2

4 tr

acki

ng 0

Dmedium 500pt

DLooking back on more than 40 years of concern with sans serif typefaces, I felt an obligation to design a linear style of

sans serif, in the tradition of Erbar™, Futura®, and to a lesser extent Gill Sans®. These have

purely constructed characters from which the element of a handwriting movement has been removed. Obviously this could not be an outstanding new creation, but I have tried to make use of the experience and stylistic developments of the 20th century in

order to work out an independent alpha-

bet meeting modern typo-

graphical needs. Avenir can be classified as a

constructivist

typeface.

68910

12

14

18

24

30

36

48

60

roman

E eF f or reasons of text

legibility the letter f has been kept relatively broad, allowing more white space on either side than is usually the case with a sans serif.

book 12pt

medium 125 pt

med

ium

275

pt

There is no separate italic design, for the simple reason that the sloped version of a constructiv-ist typeface is produced on purely mathemati-cal principles. Modern typesetting equipment does this for the user by computer control, which is in any case essential for the adaption of the o to an oval form. An angle of slope between 11° and 13° is recommended for the electronic italicisation of Avenir™.In designing the vari-ous weights, I took due account of the modern preference for thinner and finer typefaces. The four basic weights of Avenir™ are Light (35), Book (45), Roman (55) and Medium (65). These are all intended for text setting and it is hoped that their close gradation will enable the design-er or typographer to apply greater subtlety of treatment to the page of text or advertisement.

book and book oblique size: 10

Gmedium 425 pt

no spur

apeture

counter

gThe vertical strokes are thicker than the horizontals and the o is not a perfect circle. Absolutely linear characters are difficult to read in continuous text and purely geometrical letters do not unite harmoniously to form the word-images that we read. Another factor in legibility is the difference in weight between up-strokes and down-strokes, based on the familiarity of roman typestyles, which in turn owe much

of their form to the calligraphy of the Middle Ages.book 12pt

medium 300 pt

no spur

HICAPS medium

60 pt

hi65 medium

425 pt

There are also Heavy and Black versions but no Extra-bold or Ultra-bold, as these could not be de-signed in a constructivist style without making a lot of unattractive compro-mises in letters such as a,

e, and s.medium 10pt

J jcap-height

x-height

descender

jot

baseline

Adrian Frutiger, the internationally successful type designer of, among others, the Apollo, Centennial, Didot, Frutiger, Glypha, Icone, President, Serifa, Univers and Versailles, worked for more than two years on the designing of the Avenir. He is highly renowned for his successes in the design of sans-serifs, and with the Avenir he proved that he could master even the most difficult ones. book 12 pt

medium 200 pt

K kascender

counter baseline

x-height

cap-height

Design studio Thonik has used the Avenir for many years and with great success on both the design of individual printed material and complete house-styles. Nikki Gonnissen and Thomas Widdershoven show their work, complete with many examples, in the book Thonic which is available in several lan-guages. The Avenir is issued by Linotype Library and is made in PostScript, TrueType and OpenType in the weights light, book, roman, medium, heavy and black. Six oblique weights are also available.

LET’S

E E TM

¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦ § ¨ © ª « ¬ ® ¯ ° ± ² ³ ´ µ ¶ · ¸ ¹ º » ¼ ½ ¾ ¿ À à Á á  â à ã Ä ä Å å Æ æ Ç ç È è É é Ê ê Ë ë Ì ì Í í Î î Ï ï Ð ð Ñ ñ Ò ò Ó ó Ô ô Õ õ Ö ö × ÷ Ø ø Ù ù Ú ú Û û Ü ü Ý ý Þ þ ß ÿ ı Ł ł Œ œ Š š Ÿ Ž ž ƒ ˆ ˇ ˘ ˙ ˚ ˛ ˜ ˝ – — „ † ‡ • … ‰ ‹ › ™ − fi fl

The GLYPHS

roman 14 pt

Nmeet

ext,

The Avenir FAMILY

55 Roman

65 Medium

85 Heavy

35 Light

45 Book

Roman Oblique

Medium Oblique

Heavy Oblique

Light Oblique

Book Oblique

95 Black Black Oblique

OO pP

omedium 200 ptmedium 450 pt

pP The Avenir

O is not

perfectlycircular.

[unl ike the Futura O]

medium 60 pt

medium 24 pt

Q

q

The uppercase Q is perhaps the most unique character in upper-case and lower-case Ave-nir. The horizon-tal tale is Ave-nir’s clear telling feature from other construc-tivist fonts like Futura.

R

V W X

STUrv w x

s t u

Youknowwhat

medium 100 pt

med

ium

200

pt

Zmea

ns...

medium 500 pt

med

ium

72

pt

the end