Univers and Contemporary Typography: Emil Ruder

Emil Ruder: TM Typographische Monatsblätter, 8/9, 1964.

Type faces with historical background

Many of the type faces cut as historical revivals during the early decades of the 20th century are of a high quality and still in regular use. There is nothing surprising in their continued popularity because even today, in an age dominated by atomic science, electronics and all-round technical progress, it seems difficult to do better than the Italian Renaissance did with its Roman — Old-Style as we call it. It is a letter form of great merit, rational in design, and in function unsurpassed for the comfort it offers the reader. The contrast of thick and thin is satisfying, as are the proportions between x-hight, ascenders and descenders. With its carefully balanced weight it is a beautiful and at the same time eminently legible type face. Many see in the best of those Romans the ideal printing type, a letter form which can in no way be improved.

But despite their undeniable and universally appreciated qualities, one should remember that faces like Bembo, Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville etc. were designed centuries ago. Often one detects obvious links with their countries of Origin. Baskerville, for instance, looks admirable in English texts, but in German language it fails to reveal the qualities of the great Cambridge printer’s type. The frequent use of capitals and the different combination of letters in German words are detrimental to the character of Baskerville. Whatever the merits of historical type faces, they can no longer be considered as the answer to all contemporary typographical requirements and problems. Modern methods of publicity and their influence on printing were unknown when these type faces originated. Neither Garamond nor Caslon or Baskerville ever possessed a Bold version before their twentieth-century revival. They were designed and cut in Roman and Italic only. To use them for modern publicity, in large sizes and set to wide measures, can be brutal. To enlarge Garamond beyond the largest size cast in metal destroys its intimacy. Today we need large letters, bold, heavy, condensed, wide and italic founts of the only type design that can stand the strain of such treatment: the sans-serif. And we need not any sans-serif, but a good sans-serif.

The sans-serif faces before Univers

The first typefaces without serifs created England in the twenties of the 19th century. The shock they caused may account for the name bestowed upon the strange newcomer: Grotesk (= odd, ridiculous). To this day in German speaking countries the sans-serif retains this designation which is unhelpful to the reputation of the face and may even be detrimental when employed by those who dislike the designs, often for superficial reasons. As far as the printer is concerned, the most obvious features of the design are those that are negatives: the lack of serifs, the lack of contrast in the thickness of the strokes. But can the value of a type face rest in what is absent? When Paul Renner designed Futura he said in his introduction: ‘Our age prefers the functional, the technical shape to any form of art.’ However sympathetically we receive that statement, its aesthetic negation is unacceptable. For Renner it was a matter of ridding himself and his time — at any price — of the burden of an inheritance from past centuries of classical type faces which had never ceased to dictate typographical laws to his generation.

The first founts of Futura were of a strictly geometrical pattern and Renner had to make optical corrections in the later versions. But Futura nevertheless remains the example of a Grotesque constructed on rigid and exact principles. The shortcomings of such a design are evident in the capital U of Futura Bold, for instance, where the semi-circle joins the uprights with a jerk that is optically unpleasing.

The rational constructivism of Futura was rooted in the architecture and art of the twenties; like them it sought, with the help of straight lines, circles and unvaried weight, to overcome individualism (in the typefaces with script character of the time).

Renner’s rebellion against the past was closely connected with the trends of his time, good and bad, and consequently Futura is of questionable value in today’s typography. A printing type that satisfies the eye will never be a series of geometrical patterns. The human eye tends optically to enlarge the horizontal line and correspondingly to reduce the vertical. Straight lines joining at right or acute angles need special attention; in order to avoid black patches and the consequently uneven appearance of the printed page, they need to be designed with the lines diminishing as they approach the join. This applies above all to N and M.

In Switzerland designers and printers found the virtues that Futura lacked in a type face called Akzidenz Grotesk (odd-job sans-serif), which made its first appearance about the turn of the 19th century. They found this type face to be a matter-of-fact, neither too conspicuous, nor too individual, and at the same time of a weight and openness that gave good legibility even in the smallest sizes. Such advantages till then unknown in a sans-serif explain the usefulness, in almost all fields of printing, of the Akzidenz Grotesk as we still know it. For the past 20 years it has been the Grotesque preferred by graphic designers.

That certain obvious shortcomings did not hinder the remarkable success of Akzidenz Grotesk may be due to its neutral and not too overpowering appearance. It lacks sensitiveness, true, but that again can be explai- ned. The second half of the 19th century saw the birth of numerous type faces of indifferent, or outright bad design, and Akzidenz Grotesk compared astonishingly well with its contemporaries. In that period type designers generally failed to realize that certain features of calligraphy are also essential in a good printing type, and that the laws of hand-writing, although modified by the highly developed technique of punch-cutting, should still be observed. In Akzidenz Grotesk the changes in the weight of line are arbitrary instead of being governed by the weight of stroke in the letters as written with a pen. In certain sizes and founts the weight and size of the capitals are not in proportion to the lower case characters, a serious handicap for texts in German.

These faults may to a large extend be responsible for the fact that Akzidenz Grotesk is unsuitable for long texts, were it becomes illegible. And this, in turn, explains its reputation for functional inferiority as compared with the Roman letter.

Univers

Frutiger’s new sans-serif will no doubt open a new era in Grotesque typography. The design is neither based on existing sans-serifs nor does it rebel against the past. One can detect in Univers an extensive knowledge of the past, and of the reasons for the successful survival of many historical designs. The designer has been intensely aware of a precious cultural heritage, a heritage which tolerates no neglect and no violation of laws established by common sense in the course of centuries. He has also shown that he understands the moral responsibility towards those who will follow us. We may therefore hope to see Univers established as a type face of no less merit than the Roman letter.

In the past Grotesque failed to achieve full equality because it lacked something a printing type normally has, serifs. Of Univers the contrary can be said. Grotesque in general and Univers in particular reveal some of the main features in letter design. Neither serifs nor other, less important, accessories divert the eye from the basic design, a design which is extremely sensitive and registers the slightest violation of optical laws. Throughout the Univers alphabet rigid geometrical pattern is superseded by sensitive optical variations derived from the finest achievements of Roman lettering. The comparatively large x-hight ensures effortless reading in all sizes and at the same time prevents the capitals from dominating the text page. All characters are properly proportioned setwise, the width of individual letters being in proportion to the space between them. The balance of the alphabet gives a chain-like effect to the printed letters, the eye of the reader is guided along the line.

The design of the traditionally difficult letters is intelligent enough to prevent them from filling with ink even in the small sizes of the bold and condensed founts.

The weight of the three fundamental strokes is carefully balanced. The vertical line is bolder than the diagonal which, in turn, is slightly heavier than the horizontal. The three horizontal lines of E are a little thinner than the solitary horizontal line in H. In characters with small counters all strokes are thinner than in those with large encounters (O). The straight line of the letter l is slightly heavier than usual for vertical line, so that the letter can hold its own among others. In larger sizes the tapering (stream-in and stream-out) of letters is noticable. The upper parts of g, m,n, p and q have tapering stream-in lines while the lower parts of a, b, d and u have tapering stream-out lines. The c is made narrower than the o because the greater amount of white makes it seem optically as broad as the o u and n are not in the same width. The u is narrower, for as the opening occurs at the top of the letter the white is more dominant than in the n which is open at the bottom.

For the first time in the history of letterpress printing, an extensive family of typefaces was built, not as a consequence of the first successful fount but in accord- ance with a plan from the beginning. The most important element in the family, its basic fount, is Univers 55 from which all others have been derived.

The influence of Univers on today’s typography

Univers will soon be in equal partnership with other major faces. It is unlikely to be affected by the low reputation of Grotesque faces in general. Its versatility justifies its use in a class of work for which sans-serif has in the past been taboo. Subtle forms, open counters, intelligent variations in weight of the different strokes, and a sound observance of the traditional features of type guarantee good legibility. With Univers the time has come once more to argue the value of sans-serif for book work, in the past a question that has met with prejudice.

Design in printing depends to a large extent on the quality of the type face used. A face of little value encourages the typographer to use it simply asa decorative element, to cover up its weakness with virtuosity in design. That is what happened during the Bauhaus period with the work of El Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, Joost Schmidt, Piet Zwart and others whose typography was daring in its composition, always asymmetric, dynamic in its use of space and contrast. The type faces, however, were coarse and undistinguished Romans and sans-serifs of the turn of the century, sadly impervious to dynamism and mediocre compared with the layout. To degrade printing type to the role of decorative grey is unjustifiable even when the face is of inferior quality. Every type face and every style of design has a decorative quality which should be duly understood and exploited by the capable typographer, but typography should be right in form and function before one begins to play about with greyness. To use unrelieved greyness as the basis in design so that it dominates typography is to exhibit symptoms of modernism without understanding of the problems involved. A six point type set to a measure of 40 pica might give a good and uniformly grey, but such typography would be functionally wrong: the eye would travel laboriously along the endless line, the size of the individual letter being disproportionate to the measure.

In Univers the large x-hight and the correspondingly short ascenders and descenders are particularly welcome in the smaller sizes: the capitals are neither to big nor too heavy, they harmonise perfectly. Because of the sound relationship between capitals and lower case characters Univers adapts itself happily to composition in different languages. In the German text by Adalbert Stifter (example 1) there are many capitals and yet the page is nowhere patchy as it would inevitably be if the capitals were as heavy as in most faces. The French and the English texts (examples 2 and 3) set in the same face, show similar harmony which suggests that Univers is unaffected by the nature of a specific language.

It is still difficult to realize the variety of the possibilities that lie ahead, thanks to this uniquely versatile type family. 21 different founts of equal x-hight, ascenders and descenders and subtly graduated weights, Univers is a masterpiece of co-ordination and logical thinking.

Univers typography will never give the impression of being a cocktail of type faces, not even if more founts are used than one would normally dare to mix in a single piece of composition. Example 4 shows four letters of eight different founts in one line; various weights and widths, upright and inclined, and yet exhibits both an astonishing unity and a wonderful graphic richness. Our time is in need of print planned to play its part in today’s tough competition of ideas and products. A series of good type faces is of vital importance if the typographer is to satisfy the needs of modern science, industry and commerce, which all expect, and rightly so, to have their particular needs considered by the printer.

Hitherto when large jobs requiring various founts were involved the designer often had to work from a range of type faces of different origin. With Univers he will never be at a loss to find the right weight, the right width for even the most demanding job.

Such is the range of Univers that the designer can keep within the single family, without recourse to foreign elements. 21 founts, each containing approximately one hundred characters and signs, in 11 sizes, offer unequalled possibilities for combinations. With some of them the designer is already familiar: the use of large and small sizes, bold and light founts in the same job. But Univers will make possible extreme contrasts: for the first time a good italic is available, also a condensed and a wide version, and a light fount that contrasts with the emphatic bold. To use the complete Univers range intelligently, the designer and typographer must, however, be aware of two dangers: confusion and abuse.

The invention of the slug composing machine (Linotype), towards the end of the 19th century, contributed to the improvement of standards of typography by reducing the number of faces available. The designer was forced to limit himself to far fewer faces and sizes. Discipline was imposed on typography. In the hands of the wrong people the latest technical achievement might well bring back the chaos of the pre-slug period. The Lumitype filmsetting machine, for instance, enables the operator to use 16 different faces in 12 different sizes with a touch of the finger. Thus 16 of the 21 Univers faces could be mixed in the same job — not an attractive prospect. But with modern technical process we see the same phenomenon in architecture and industrial design. The technical resources today at the disposal of all those concerned with design can – and often do – result in chaos.

The graphic designer, confronted with the rich range of material from which he can choose, must be aware of his responsibility. Only the soundly-trained typographer endeavouring earnestly to use his knowledge and experience to the best of his skill will be worthy of this new abundance.

Published in Typographische Monatsblätter TM 1.1961

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