Futura®100 देवनागरी

The original Futura® was the ultimate in geometric sans serifs, reducing a design category to its most concentrated concept and form. Futura®100 is the epitome of minimalist geometric typefaces. TypeTogether has brought together a highly talented team of designers to create Futura®100 Devanagari. The result is a typeface family that – thanks to close cooperation with Bauer Types – remains faithful to the original design intentions and retains a constructed but warm quality.

Shapes in Indic scripts cannot be reduced to basic geometric forms because they are inherently complex. Futura®100 Devanagari reframes how Renner’s work can be reinterpreted by centering creative intent and design details. The focus is on reducing lettershapes to their essence and removing gestural flourishes. Geometric elements are brought in through the distinctive round counters of छ थ ढ श and the corners in ख र स, which go from pointed to chamfered as the shapes put on weight. The angles at which terminals are cut and how they are finished varies throughout the character set. A mixture of angles — orthogonal to the stroke direction, vertical and horizontal — all borrowed from the original Latin creates a pleasant tension between humanism and mechanical geometry. 

The flavours of Futura® and other modernist typefaces of the last century have seeped into the Indian lettering and graphic design landscape through globalisation and cultural exchange. Futura®100 Devanagari is synthesised from these inheritances, while benefiting from direct access to Renner’s original designs. Shapes like the knotless म भ and the disconnected ख speak directly to this multifaceted legacy.

Careful attention has been paid to the rhythm of horizontal proportions, one of the features that makes the original Latin design stand apart. Within the confines of what is agreeable in the script, Futura®100 Devanagari echoes this by having considerable width variation in Light, which evens out to a more conventional cadence in Bold. Contrast the transformation of the narrow म with that of the rounder ल across weights for a taste of Futura’s unique textural musicality. Vertical proportions, especially in deep conjuncts, have also been rationalised so that logos and headlines set in the typeface look compact and striking, even when paired with other scripts in the family like Gujarati, Gurmukhi and Bengali.

Futura®100 Devanagari is an excellent resource for graphic designers seeking to localise international designs for the Indian market, as well as for Indian designers looking to make use of Futura®’s modern, rational spirit. 

Futura®100 Devanagari is available in six weights as well as a variable font. It joins 22 other scripts to serve more than 90% of the world’s population: Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Chinese, Cyrillic, Georgian, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Greek, Hebrew, Kannada, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latin, Malayalam, Myanmar, Odia, PanAfrican Latin, Tamil, Telugu, and Thai.

What was new and disruptive for its time has now become a hinge upon which type design turns and graphic design rests. More than mechanical, Futura®100 is structural. It gives such strength and stamina to the text that it has lasted a century and, with this iteration, will remain in constant use by more designers worldwide for the foreseeable future.

About Futura®
Original design: Paul Renner
Copyright of the original design: Bauer Types
Copyright of Futura®100: TypeTogether (with authorization from Bauer Types).
Futura® is a registered trademark of Bauer Types. Used under license.