Univers

Campus signpost at the Free University of Berlin

The Univers [ ynivɛʁ ] is a linear sans -Schrift that in the years 1950/1951 to 1956 by Adrian Frutiger designed and made by the type foundry in 1957 Deberny & Peignot was published. It is known for its factual and cool elegance as well as its good legibility even from a distance.

properties

At first glance, the Univers is quite similar to the Helvetica , which was designed by Max Miedinger around the same time . Helvetica and Univers are probably among the most frequently used fonts in Swiss typography .

Different line weights and character widths within the font family, which consists of a total of 21 (later 27) font styles, are identified by a number system instead of names - a system that Frutiger later also used for other fonts. B. Univers 55 for normal typeface with normal line width and character width ("Roman" or "Regular"), Univers 67 for bold typeface with narrow character width ("Condensed Bold") etc.

Univers enjoyed great popularity in the 1960s and 1970s and is still one of the most widely used sans serif fonts today.

use

The Univers is used by BP , Esso , Deutsche Bank , Messe Frankfurt , DLRG and the Swiss airline , among others . Apple used this font in its italic variant for the lettering of the keyboards. In addition, the Univers 55 was the corporate typeface for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Until 2002, Univers was the corporate font of Siemens AG , which then switched to specially designed fonts.

Since the introduction of the digital topographic maps (around 2010), all labels in all official map series in Germany have been set in different sections of the Univers. FedEx has been using this font for signatures under the company logo since July 15, 2005 , such as: B. "Express", "Ground" etc. and as an official font for public communication. In its UIC 640 leaflet, the International Union of Railways (UIC) recommends the font Univers 65 half bold or 67 narrow half bold for addresses on locomotives ; it is actually used by the National Company of the Belgian Railways (SNCB) and earlier by the Dutch railway company NS . The latter has now switched to the Frutiger font , which makes it easier to distinguish between digits in poor visibility conditions.

Advancement

In 1997, a Univers font family, completely redesigned by Adrian Frutiger in collaboration with Linotype, was launched under the name Linotype Univers . It now consists of 63 different cuts, which were largely redesigned and drawn for this project. This includes four monospaced cuts. In 2010, Akira Kobayashi, Linotype's Type Director, worked with Adrian Frutiger to create small caps to match Linotype Univers. At the same time, these cuts were published under the name Univers Next . This makes the name more compatible with the other fonts in Linotype's Platinum Collection, which combines the improved classic fonts.

In the GDR, they did not want to make themselves dependent on manufacturers from the West and created the Maxima font as a socialist response to Univers and Helvetica .

Classification of the script

According to DIN 16518 , Univers is categorized in group VIa (sans serif linear antiqua with a classicistic character)

Hans Peter Willberg would classify it as static grotesque in his classification matrix

Web links

Commons : Univers - collection of images, videos and audio files