UNIVERS

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'Univers' (pronounced "oo-nih-VAIR", French: "Universe") is the name of a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1956. Both Univers and Helvetica, with which it is sometimes confused, take inspiration from the 1896 typeface Akzidenz Grotesk. These typefaces figure prominently in the Swiss Style of graphic design.
Different weights and variations within the type family are designated by the use of 'numbers' rather than names, a system since adopted by Frutiger for other type designs. Frutiger envisioned a large family with multiple widths and weights that maintained a unified design idiom.
The Univers type family consists of 14 weights plus 14 corresponding ''Oblique'' weights plus 16 variants with central european and cyrillic character set.
In 1997 Frutiger reworked the whole Univers family in cooperation with Linotype, thus creating the ''Linotype Univers'', which consists of 63 weights. By reworking the Univers more "extreme" weights as ''Ultra Light'' or ''Extended Heavy'' were added as well as some monospaced typefaces. The numbering system as explained below was extended to three digits to reflect the larger number of variations in the family.

Contents

The Frutiger numbering system

Prefixes

Suffixes

Usage

External Links

References

The Frutiger numbering system

Adrian Frutiger designed his unique classification system to eliminate naming and specifying confusion. It was first used with Univers, and is also seen in Frutiger, Avenir, Helvetica Neue, and others.
Due to some typeface manufacturers’ failure to understand and implement the system correctly, however, things have actually become more confusing (some Helvetica Neue fonts are numbered, for example, and some are not).
The system, as simply stated as possible, consists of a prefix (the first numeral) which defines weight, and a suffix (the second numeral) which defines width and orientation as to roman or italic. The prefix indicates the weight, beginning with "2", as in Univers 25 (ultra light), and progressing up to "9", as in Univers 95 (black). Very infrequently, the weight will go up to "10".
The suffix indicates the width and/or angle (even numbers are always italic, odd numbers are always upright; numerals less than 5 indicate extended, and numerals greater than 6 are always condensed) of the font.

Prefixes

2. Ultra Light


3. Thin


4. Light


5. Normal, Roman, or Regular


6. Medium


7. Bold


8. Heavy


9. Black


10. Ultra or Extra Black

Suffixes

# Ultra Extended
# Ultra Extended Oblique (Italic)
# Extended
# Extended Oblique (Italic)
# Normal
# Oblique (Italic)
# Condensed
# Condensed Oblique (Italic)
# Ultra Condensed

Usage

Univers enjoyed great popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. It is used in a modified version by the new Swiss International Air Lines (previously, Swissair used the typeface Futura), Deutsche Bank and for signage all over the world. General Electric used the font from 1986 to 2004 before switching to GE Inspira ^[1]. Apple Inc. previously used this typeface as well as its condensed oblique variant for the keycaps on many of its keyboards, before completely switching to VAG Rounded in August 2007 with the introduction of new keyboards and the new iMac (their notebook computers already featured that typeface since 2001). Univers is known for its clear lines and legibility at great distances.
The Montreal Metro, San Francisco BART ^[2], Frankfurt airport and the Walt Disney World road system also make extensive use of this typeface. Some but not all London boroughs use Univers Bold Condensed for street signs [2][3]. The Royal Air Force adopted the font for all merchandising material in 2006 to complement its new corporate logo. Ordnance Survey also adapted Univers for use on their maps (added tails on the lowercase l and t, and other small changes to help distinguish the type from the map details) of which they own all rights to. In 2006, the Office of Fair Trading adopted Univers as its corporate typographic voice in size 12-point so that visually impaired people can more easily read its publications.
Rand McNally once used Univers on their maps and atlases from the 1970s to 2004 when they adopted use of Frutiger.
Univers is embedded in the HP LaserJet 1100 Printer. Installing a LaserJet 1100 on a Windows system will also add several new fonts to the list, with a printer icon near their names. This icon means that the selected font is a printer font (processed by the printer), instead of a system font (processed and rasterized by the system, such as a TrueType or OpenType typeface).
Univers Light Ultra Condensed was also used in the Star Wars opening crawl for the titles of the films.

External Links

★ Typowiki: Univers

★ Linotype.com

References

1. "A Website about Corporate Identity", entry for GE
2. [1]