History of Design Lecture 4 Reflections

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A font that caught my attention during this lecture was Univers as this lecture was after my typography lesson in which we learnt about letter pressing and we saw the fonts classified into tiny cabinets. What intrigued me was that Univers has such a huge family and the way that they are named.

Upon further research, I found out that the first Univers family had 21 varying fonts and has since expanded to 44. It was designed by Adrian Frutiger from 1954-57 and produced by the Deberny & Peignot foundry in 1957.  It is the first typeface to number its fonts based on the weight-55 is the base weight, anything smaller is thinner and anything larger is thicker while odd numbers are bolded fonts and even numbers are italicised fonts.

Univers typeface was very popular when it was released, even more so than Helvetica which is more popular now. It is preferred due to its versatility with its large family of variations, and its clean-cutness. It has been used widely in branding and signages (e.g. London signages).

I personally really like san serif fonts as I find them very practical and clean. Before this lecture, I use Helvetica a lot but then I realise that Univers is another font that I would like to work with and am excited to! These few weeks to come have been eye opening and for a student majoring only in visual communication, I have learnt a lot on the milestones of graphic design and typography and have expanded my reference library! I think that even though we have to listen up due to the quizzes, the content itself was interesting and I liked that we not only learnt about design but also photography! Thank you for these past weeks!

References:

https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/univers/story

The Univers of Helvetica: A Tale of Two Typefaces

https://www.linotype.com/267/univers.html

Adrian Frutiger, type designer and creator of London’s street-sign font, dies aged 87

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One Reply to “History of Design Lecture 4 Reflections”

  1. Thank you for the valuable feedback and I’m glad you enjoyed the lectures! Try to apply the theories and knowledge to your projects in the future!

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