Futura was born in the wake of the Bauhaus and modernism, which wanted a typography free of any historical reference. Renner built his letters from simple geometric shapes: the circle, the square and the triangle.
At a glance
Origin: Bauer type foundry, Frankfurt, Germany.
Designer: Paul Renner.
Date: 1927.
Evolution
It became the archetype of geometric sans serifs and has been copied and reinterpreted many times, up to Futura Now, released by Monotype in 2020.
Famous examples
It appears on the plaque left on the Moon by Apollo 11, in the Louis Vuitton, Absolut and Supreme logotypes, and was long IKEA's typeface. Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson made it one of their signatures.
Current use
It remains one of the most used typefaces in fashion, advertising and identities that want to evoke modernism.
Alternatives
Avenir, Jost, Century Gothic.
Great typefaces glossary
Akzidenz-Grotesk, Arial, Avenir, Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon, Circular, Cooper Black, Didot, DIN, FF Meta, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Garamond, Georgia, Gill Sans, Gotham, Graphik, Helvetica, IBM Plex, Inter, Minion, Montserrat, Myriad, Neue Haas Grotesk, Optima, Poppins, Roboto, Sabon, SF Pro, Source Sans, Source Serif, Times New Roman, Univers, Verdana