Gothic Script
If one looks up Gothic script in Wikipedia, one discovers that Gothic script, letters, text, typeface or font may refer to: 1) Gothic alphabet, the Greek-derived writing system of the Gothic language; 2) Visigothic script, a script style used by the Visigoths in Iberia for writing Latin; 3) Gothic script (palaeography), a family of handwriting scripts that originally developed from Caroline minuscule in Western Europe in the late 11th century; 4) Blackletter, an ornate calligraphic style of Gothic script, including a) Fraktur, a form of Blackletter and b) Schwabacher, a form of Blackletter; 5) Sans-serif, or gothic, a typographical style without serif decorations. In typography, this is the meaning usually associated with the term gothic type, for example Century Gothic; 6) East Asian Gothic typeface, a Chinese, Japanese or Korean typographical style without serifs or analogous decorations.
Here, I am using it in terms of context 5, the sans-serif typographical style. Many people, when they think of sans-serif, automatically associate it with the typeface Helvetica = Neue Haas Grotesk (original name) designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger (1910 – 1980) and Eduard Hoffman (1892 – 1980), as the definitive sans serif typeface, with its newer name originating with Helvetia, the female personification of the Swiss state. For me, Helvetica is too popular, and lacking in the geometrical qualities I want in a sans-serif typeface. When I think of the sans-serif category, I think Futura, a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner (1878 – 1956) and released almost 100 years ago in 1927. it is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.It was designed as a contribution to the New Frankfurt = Neues Frankfurt (German) project, an affordable public housing program in Frankfurt started in 1925 and completed in 1930.
My familiarity with typefaces began in the mid 1960s, when, over several years, I bought multiple Letraset dry-transfer decal sheets, in assorted typefaces, including Futura. At the time, Letraset was a British company, with its headquarters in Ashford, Kent, England. The town lies on the River Great Stour at the southern/ scarp edge of the North Downs, almost 100 km by road southeast of central London.
Yes, I have attempted to download and install a free Futura font. However, I notice that there are numerous typefaces called Futura, that are not the Futura I know and love. Paul Renner wanted to modernize typography by moving away from the heritage of calligraphy. He banished the serif and introduced simplicity in his refined typefaces by using geometric figures. The Futura, designed between 1924 and 1927, was innovative for its time. The first version was based on strict geometrical shapes, including isosceles triangles, squares and perfect circles. Its geometrical shape took precedence over legibility. Considerable reworking was necessary, taking into account optical phenomena, to arrive at its final version of 1927.
In 1926, Paul Renner became the director of the Munich printing school. After seeing a colleague molested by Nazi sympathizers for praising modern art, Paul Renner published Kulturbolschewismus (German) = Cultural Bolshevism (English), an essay opposed to Nazi aesthetic. For this he was briefly incarcerated and removed from his position as director. However Renner arranged for his friend and team member, George Trump, to take over the director’s position to avoid an appointment by the Nazis. They imposed their own view of typography. Everything had to be written/ printed in Fraktur = German Gothic.
It is in the city of Hanover that this typographic conflict takes the most visible form. Designer Kurt Schwitters imposed the use of Futura in all official communications. After the Nazis came to power, the city had to revise its entire identity and replace Futura with Gothic characters. In 1943, the municipality returned to a legible antique typeface, without reusing Futura.
While Volkswagen originally used the Futura typeface, it changed in 1997 to VAG Rundschrift (German) or VAG Rounded (English), a geometric sans-serif typeface as its corporate typographic identity. This was changed in 2024 to another font that appears to be unnamed, developed by the Landor group. Landor Associates was founded in 1941 by Walter Landor (1913 – 1995), in San Francisco, California. He was born in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, educated in the United Kingdom at London University’s Goldsmith College School of Art, where he also changed his surname from Landauer to Landor. He worked mainly in San Fransisco, living and dying across the Bay, in Tiburon, California. He was a proponent of branding and consumer research techniques.
Landor bought a retired ferryboat, the Klamath, in 1964 for $12 000 and converted it into his company’s corporate headquarters. The vessel had operated as a ferry from 1924 to 1956, retiring after the opening of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge. Architect Morton Rader (1926 – 1978) and designer Richard Rosek (? – ?) were retained for the conversion, and Landor held an open ship party in September 1964 to mark its completion. It was docked at Pier 5, The Embarcardero, San Francisco. Space onboard the Klamath was rented to six other companies. The firm moved from Klamath to 1001 Front Street, San Francisco in the late 1980s, but retained the Klamath as their corporate symbol. At some point, the ferry was purchased by Duraflame and was moved to Stockton, California, which is on the San Joaquin River.
One characteristic of Futura, missing from many other type faces, is that there are alternative lowercase letters. The above illustration shows them, although the lowercase L is missing.
This post will end with an image showing some of the companies using Futura in their corporate logos
Other World Goth Day posts: