Paul renner futura biography of barack obama

SALT LAKE CITY — A typeface that was billed as the “font of the future,” that was decried and then embraced by the Nazis, that went to the moon and Costco, after 100 years, is still going strong, according to BYU professor and graphic designer Doug Thomas.

Futura was created by German designer Paul Renner and introduced in 1927. Renner, influenced by the Bauhaus movement, created the visually sleek sans-serif font.

In his book “Never Use Futura,” Thomas explained that Futura was the first sans-serif that tried to go at a geometric design, using triangles, squares, and circles for the modern age.

“It represented modernism it represented something new and different.”

‘Something more futuristic’

“In a way that ushered in modernism for all, you know,” Thomas said. “Let’s do away with some of the ornament…Let’s try to get to something more futuristic. In that way, the name of the font hit the zeitgeist.”

The Nazis, who preferred the traditional fraktur type, at first called the typeface “degenerate,” but later decided blackletter typefaces looked too much like Hebrew letters, banned Fraktur, and adopted other typefaces, Futura included.

Thomas says Futura copycats—Airport Gothic, Vogue, Spartan, and others—took off in the U.S., despite some calls to boycott the Futura typeface because of its German origins.

“Everyone was talking about Helvetica,” Thomas said, “but in some ways what I discovered in my research is that Futura was the first typeface to change the way that people started using sans-serifs.”

Over the past 97 years, Futura and its knockoffs have appeared on “I Like Ike” campaign buttons, Richard Nixon campaign materials, and Barack Obama posters. It’s been used in Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines and Volk

So, about that Obama-in-Berlin poster.

No, I’m not going to make fun of the small handful of right-wing blogs that got fake-alarmist about it, hinting that it kinda sorta looked Fascist. My question is related, however. Being a sensible and knowledgeable sort of person, as opposed to some sort of crazed wingnut, when I look at the poster I see not Fascist art but an homage to German modernist styles of the 1910’s and 20’s. Being the sort of person who futzes with fonts, I also see an example of art that would have been actually illegal under the Nazis. Quoting from German Modern, by Steven Heller and Louise Fili [amazon]:

After the Nazi’s rise to power in 1933, however, when the Dessau Bauhaus was closed (the school had moved from its original home in Weimar in 1925), it was forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such as Futura, which Goebbels called a “Jewish invention.” Rigid, central balanced composition returned and traditional (and often illegible) Fraktur type was touted as symbolic of the glories of the nation. (17)

The Bauhaus was birthplace to New Typography, by Jan Tschichold, father of Futura. [UPDATE: No, sorry, it was Paul Renner. But the font was associated with the Bauhaus.] I’ve long been curious about how this whole ‘forbidden to use modern design or sans-serif typefaces such a Futura’ was enforced in practice. (I like the idea that maybe the Germans lost the war because of a font gap. They were all going blind, trying to read the Führer’s orders in Fraktur.) But I’ve never actually read a full discussion of this, and I’ve read inconsistent brief mentions.

Example: the wikipedia entry for Art of the Third Reich has this to say. “The poster became an important medium for propaganda during this period. Combining text and bold graphics, posters were extensively deployed both in Germany and in the areas occupied. Their

Once upon a time, the word "font" meant the individual bits of lead from a foundry used in printing: "font" and "foundry" both come from the Middle French verb fondre (to melt), which lead does nicely. These fonts were created in a number of distinct alphabetic looks, known as "typefaces." Each typeface had a unique name, like Garamond or Geneva, and spanned a variety of heights and weights (italic, bold). Everything was done by hand; aesthetically and pragmatically, printing was a demanding business.

These days, only type designers—typographers—think in terms of typefaces. For everyone else, the digital age has effaced the face/font distinction: the "fonts" installed on your computer are a lot more flexible than a box of lead blocks, and using them takes no more effort than clicking a mouse. Now, however, I have a lovely new anthology—Font. The Sourcebook—to make me pause for thought. It's part catalogue, with a seductive selection of fonts on display. But it also presumes to tell "the story of type." And it's a tale that makes the relationship between print, design and history seem as complex and current as ever.

I open my new book. "The story of typography just is the story of human communication. Across space and time and throughout all human history, the way that humans have chosen to record stories, theories and all manner of public declarations has been informed by the technologies and designs surrounding the field of typography." No, this will never do. Most communication is oral. And isn't it the case that typography only starts with Gutenberg?

Well, yes. But then again: no. Its origins are far older. In ancient Greek, typos meant a strike or dent and thus, by extension, casting or impressing forms. So strictly speaking, typography begins not with the printing press but with cuneiform: the wedge-shaped impressions struck into clay 5,000 years ago in Sumeria. Typography is dent-

The Futura typeface, popularized by Supreme‘s notorious box logo and Barbara Kruger‘s artwork, could have been much more infamous had it not escaped the Nazis. Created by Paul Renner in 1920s Germany, the Bauhaus-esque font was an idealistic “vision for the future of type” that caught steam during a period of acute revolution when the Nazis began to exert power over Germany. Futura’s modern design became a symbol of change and of German aesthetics, making it a critical motif for the Nazis. Fortunately, the Nazis favored the elaborate Fraktur typeface over the avant-garde Futura, exiling the font and its creator from Germany. By the time the Nazis were defeated, Futura had established itself as the international font of the future, appearing on the Apollo 11 spaceship and eventually taking over global advertisements and designs. Watch the brief documentary by Vox above and share your thoughts in the comments below.

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