Univers

Category	sans-serif
Classification	Neo-grotesque sans-serif
Designer(s)	Adrian Frutiger
Foundry	Deberny & Peignot Linotype
Date released	1957
Variations	Zurich

Univers (French pronunciation: ​[ynivɛʁ], "ünivair") is the name of a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1954.^[1]

Originally conceived and released by Deberny & Peignot in 1957, the type library was acquired in 1972 by Haas. Then transferred into the D. Stempel AG and Linotype collection in 1985 and 1989 respectively upon the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) acquisition and closing.

Characteristics

Univers is one of a group of neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces, all released in 1957,^[2] that includes Folio and Neue Haas Grotesk (later renamed Helvetica). These three faces are sometimes confused with each other, because each is based on the 1898 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. However, the actual typeface names within Univers family include both number and letter suffixes.

Currently, Univers type family consists of 44 faces, with 16 uniquely numbered weight, width, position combinations. 20 fonts have oblique positions. 8 fonts support Central European character set. 8 support Cyrillic character set.

Despite the large family of widths, the "@" sign is not rescaled by width.

In lowercase, these faces feature a double storey A and a square dot in the letter I.^{[citation needed]} In uppercase, these faces feature a dropped horizontal element on the letter A.^{[citation needed]}

Univers Cyrillic, Univers Pro Cyrillic (2010)

In April 2010, Linotype announced the release of Cyrillic versions of the original Univers family, in TrueType, PostScript, and OpenType Pro font formats. Released fonts include Univers 55 Roman Oblique; Univers Pro Cyrillic 45 (roman, oblique), 55 (roman, oblique), 65 (roman, oblique), 75 (roman, oblique), 85 (roman, oblique), 47 (roman, oblique), 57 (roman, oblique), 67 (roman, oblique), 39 (roman), 49 (roman), 59 (roman).^[3]

Linotype Univers

In 1997 Frutiger reworked the whole Univers family in cooperation with Linotype, thus creating the Linotype Univers, which consists of 63 fonts. By reworking the Univers more "extreme" weights as Ultra Light or Extended Heavy were added as well as some monospaced typefaces. The numbering system was extended to three digits to reflect the larger number of variations in the family.

In addition to extra font width and weight combinations, the fonts are digitally interpolated, so that character widths scale uniformly with changing font weights. For fonts within a specific font weight, caps height, x-height, ascender and descender heights are the same. For oblique fonts, the slope is increased from 12° to 16°, and the character widths were adjusted optically. In addition, characters such as &, ®, euro sign, are redesigned.

Linotype Univers Typewriter

Linotype Univers Typewriter is a sub-family of fixed-width fonts under the Linotype Univers family. Four fonts have been produced in Regular and Bold weights, with obliques on each weight. Characters such as 1, I, J, M, W, i, j, l, dotless j are drawn differently.

Univers Next (2010)

In 2010, Linotype extended the Linotype Univers family with true small caps and renamed into a more logical naming of "Univers Next" to fit better in the Platinum Collection naming. All later extensions of the font family were marketed under the Univers Next title.

The font family includes all fonts previously released under the Linotype Univers title.

Univers Next W1G

This version supports Greek and Cyrillic characters.

The font family includes 12 fonts (330, 331, 430, 431, 530, 531, 630, 631, 730, 731, 830, 831) in 6 weights and 1 width, with complementary italics.

The Cyrillic version was released as Univers Next Cyrillic in OpenType Pro format.

Univers Next Arabic (2011)

It is a companion to the Latin typeface Univers Next designed by Nadine Chahine with the consulting of Adrian Frutiger. It is a modern Kufi design with large open counters and low contrast, mainly designed to work in titles and short runs of text. The font includes the basic Latin part of Univers Next and support for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. It also includes proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages.

The font family consists of 3 fonts (330, 430, 630) in 3 weights and 1 width, without italics. OpenType features include fraction, localized forms, proportional figures, contextual alternates, discretionary ligatures, initial forms, terminal forms, glyph composition/decomposition, isolated forms, medial forms, required ligatures.

The Frutiger numbering system

Adrian Frutiger designed his unique classification system to eliminate naming and specifying confusion. It was first used with Univers, and was adopted for use in the Frutiger, Avenir, and Neue Helvetica typeface families.

The number used in a font is a concatenation of two numbers. The first set defines weight, while the second defines width and position.

	Suffix
Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Weight	-	Ultra Light	Thin	Light	Normal, Roman, or Regular	Medium	Bold	Heavy	Black	Ultra or Extra Black
Width and position	Ultra Extended	Ultra Extended Oblique	Extended	Extended Oblique	Normal	Oblique	Condensed	Condensed Oblique	Ultra Condensed	-

(note: oblique is not strict italic)

Due to some typeface manufacturers’ failure to understand and implement the system correctly, however, things have actually become more confusing. To further complicate matters, the numbering system is not consistently applied to the Univers font family. In older publications, all oblique fonts have even-numbered 2nd values; but in digital versions, both odd and even 2nd values have been used on oblique fonts, but not in all font formats or weights. For example, Univers 55 Roman Oblique has both Windows menu names and PostScript full names as Univers LT 55 Oblique and Univers 56 Oblique, but only for the Windows PostScript version of the font; however, in Univers 85 Extra Black Oblique, there is no font named Univers 86 in any format. Nevertheless, oblique Univers fonts always have even-numbered 2nd value.

Inconsistent usage aside, the syntax of 2nd value is also inconsistent with 1st value. Bigger 1st value implies the glyph of a given character uses more horizontal space, but it has opposite meaning in 2nd value.

Linotype numbering system

In Linotype Univers and Univer Next font family, a 3-number system is used. First numeral describes font weight, second numeral describes font width, third numeral describes position.^[4]

	Suffix
Number	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Weight	-	Ultra Light	Thin	Light	Regular	Medium	Bold	Heavy	Black	Extra Black
Width	-	Compressed	Condensed	Basic	Extended	-	-	-	-	-
Position	Roman	Italic	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Unlike the original Univers, tilted fonts in Linotype Univers and derivative font families have not been named 'oblique'.

Usage

Univers enjoyed great popularity in the 1960s and 1970s because many corporations adopted it for usage. It is used in a modified version by the new Swiss International Air Lines (previously, Swissair used the typeface Futura), Munich Re Group (which also uses a personalized version), Deutsche Bank and for signage all over the world. General Electric used the font from 1986 to 2004 before switching to GE Inspira.^[5] 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 1999). Univers is known for its clear lines and legibility at great distances.

The Montreal Metro, BART,^[6] various Toronto Transit Commission subway stations, Frankfurt airport and the Walt Disney World road system also make extensive use of this typeface (though Disney is in the process of replacing it with Avenir (typeface)). Some but not all London boroughs use Univers Bold Condensed for street signs.^[7] 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.

The font is also used in the UK for School Tests and exams extensively, due to its clear differences between characters like I and 1 that prevents confusion between letterforms.

Univers was widely used by the East German government during the 1980s for propaganda material, especially during the 40th anniversary of the country. ^[8]

George W. Bush used Univers for his campaign logos in both 2000 and 2004. Bush's 2000 campaign logo was set in Univers 85 Extra Black, while the 2004 campaign logo used Univers 85 Extra Black Oblique (italic).

Rand McNally once used Univers on their maps and atlases from the 1970s to 2004 when they adopted use of Frutiger.

From 1974 to 1987 the World Book Encyclopedia used Univers as their secondary font, including the introductory page of every volume.

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).

Since early 2009, CNN Domestic and CNN International have adopted several weights of Univers in their on-screen graphics. CNN International used Helvetica until the switch to Univers, while CNN Domestic previously used many different typefaces.

US ultra-low-cost airline Spirit Airlines uses Univers Extended in various weights for its branding.

Safelite, the largest automotive glass repair and replacement company in the US, uses Univers extensively and in various forms.

ESPN also used Univers as its main font for their on-screen graphics from 2004 to 2010; the ESPN Bottom Line ticker continues to use Univers as of 2013. However in their broadcasts of NFL's Monday Night Football, NBA on ESPN and ESPN Major League Baseball, they changed to Franklin Gothic in the 2006-07 season. SportsCenter and other ESPN-related programming gradually switched to Klavika in their on-screen graphics in 2009, later followed by the network's flagship live programs.

Most Fox Television Stations use this in newscasts.

Frutiger (with Howard "Bud" Kettler^[9]) adapted^[10] Univers for the 9-unit escapement system on the IBM Selectric Composer widely used for in-house typesetting in the 1960-70s.

Univers 45, 55, 65, 57, 67, 53, 63 are incorporated in PostScript standard as PostScript 3 core fonts.

Audi Sans is a variant based on Univers,^[11] designed by Ole Schäfer.^[12] It became Audi's corporate identity font in 1990s,^[13] when Audi contracted MetaDesign to support Audi's brand management strategy.^[14]

Portal's Aperture Science logo uses the Univers font.^{[citation needed]}

The current eBay logo is set in Univers.^[15]

YESCO, a custom sign company, branded their new logo using the Univers font.

In the Star Wars opening crawl, the title for the film is in univers.

In popular culture

Seattle based electronic group Darkpine used the typeface as inspiration for their 2011 single and video "Univers".

Comparison with Akzidenz-Grotesk, Folio, and Helvetica

Differences between Univers and the two other fonts include:

• The tail of 'a' and the top of '1' are much less rounded.
• 'G' is formed without an arrow head (called a spur).
• The arms of 'K' join at the stem.
• The tail of 'Q' runs along the baseline.
• The tail of 'R' is curved (compared with Akzidenz-Grotesk).
• The top of 't' is angled.
• 'Y' has a straight descender.
• many of the numerals in Univers have straight vs. curved ascenders

References

External links

• Typowiki: Univers
• Podium discussion: Univers is a classical typeface
• Univers History and Usage