futura

I was editing a spreadsheet yesterday and accidentally shifted some of the text in the grid to be in the Futura typeface, and since then, I’ve been sort of obsessed with the way the typeface looks. (Picture & link are from Wikipedia.) I’ve always really enjoyed learning about letter forms, and got to take a class with designer Chuck Bigelow when I was at Stanford. The class was awesome. We learned a lot about letter systems, of course, but also about the politics of type (there’s a lot there — more than one typographer was burned at the stake because of their typesetting).

Anyway, I’m pretty blown away by looking at type in Futura the last day or so. Hard to explain exactly, but there it is. It was created in the 20s, it’s a geometric sans serif, and just has such a sturdy feel to it.

Random post for the day.