Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Brought to you by the letter...

Today's letter is brought to you by the letter: M.
Futura, Medium, M.

What I like most about the Futura 'M' is that it's unapolegetic--no soft curves, no humps or bumps, just three sharp points. It's like Futura 'M' is saying, if you mess with me, I will cut you. It's shape doesn't fall into the trap of looking like mountains, it's not a mountain, it's a letter and 'M' knows it. It's not trying to be anything besides a legible, no frills, geometric letter. The thick black lines make out two isoceles triagles--our eyes filling in the baseline--and the white space under them make two more. I also like how the middle downward point just crosses the baseline. Trying to be a little rebellious, are we 'M'?

Courtesy of My Fonts.com:
Design Foundry: Bauersche Giesserei / Bauer Types
Designer: Paul Renner
Date: 1927
Classification: Geometric Sans Serif

Courtesy of Wikipedia:
About: Futura is based on geometric shapes that became representative visual elements of the Bauhaus design style from 1919-1933. Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. This is most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the "o", which is nonetheless slightly ovoid. In designing Future, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals. Original Futura design also included small capitals and old-style figures, which were dropped from the original metal issue of the type. The digital versions of these glyphs were first produced by Neufville Digital under the Futura ND family.