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| Futura and the like in NYC |
You've seen it. The slow shift from the classic, serif fonts that dictated business cards (cough-cough American Psycho) and shop fronts and logos of the 90's and early 2000s to the no-nonsense, geometric, almost retro-feeling sans-serif ones we have seen peppering the landscape now. Brands have either rebranded to it (Swissair, Mastercard, more recently Lenovo) or have were born that way (Spotify, FeDEx, LinkedIn) - cue Lady Gaga.
Most of those fonts were popular in the 20's and 30s, when there was a need for geometric and precise typesetting - and the ability for it to translate perfectly across all the printing equipment at that time. But none are as popular and as worshipped (just a little) as a font called Futura.
Futura is probably a font that you've seen around a lot - Google's logo is done in a heavily influenced version of it. It has a rich history, and was the beginning of an era, so to speak. There are definitely visuals in my head of sans serif fonts being used on book covers from the 50's and 60's that give it a mod/retro feel. Stanley Kubrick, for one, was a huge fan of Futura and used it in his movies. The irony is that the use of the font now is to evoke nostalgia, but back in the day it was used to show precision, futurism and new frontiers in design and art.
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| Source: Wikipedia |
So why is it making such a huge comeback now?
1. For starters, it is extremely legible. It is thick enough to be used over any color, without making it hard to read. Gone are the days (I HOPE) where fonts like Brush Script, Zapfino and Curlz MT were used to communicate brand messaging. I would mention Comic Sans but one of the only things it has going for it is that it is at least easy to read.
2. It's also ridiculously versatile. As you can see by it's illustrious history, it can be applied to a wide number of industries and situations and works with any sort of advertising - from photographic campaigns to heavily graphic ones. It's like a bloody chameleon.
3. This is definitely an extension of the nostalgia marketing phenomenon. Stranger Things, Riverdale, Nastygal, anything with Kate Moss in the campaign are great examples in the current landscape. Millennials love to #tbt, and there's that special feeling we reserve for when we see/hear/taste something linked to a childhood memory. Corporations wasted no time jumping on that to squeeze an extra dime out of us. It's like they were waiting for us to turn 20-something and then started bombarding us with marketing that said, "Hey remember the good ol' days when you didn't have to pay taxes or do your laundry or go to the bank come buy this thing that takes you back to that time I swear it'll make you feel better." So when you see that font used, you feel like the brand represents something retro and kinda cool - and you're often consciously or subconsciously drawn to it. Brands love it when we have those 'I see what you did there' moments.
4. It's decently responsive. With web-tablet-mobile being a prerequisite for all sites for an omni-channel experience, it's important that fonts used translate seamlessly. Futura is on a lot of operating systems for this reason.
Although I love the font, I do think that it's creeping into a LOT of logos and marketing collateral. It is creating a homogeneity in a market that is more competitive than ever. What do you think?
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