Futura®100 한글

Futura®100 Korean brings the contextual qualities of Paul Renner’s popular geometric sans serif into contemporary usage for the 81 million people who use the Hangeul script. It will serve graphic designers as both an excellent display typeface as well as in longer texts, and has been carefully designed to harmonise with the other script variants of Futura®100, including Latin. 

For a long time, it has been difficult to define a Korean typeface that truly matches the design of Futura®. Many designers have attempted to pair Futura® with Korean 탈네모꼴 (non-square) typefaces. However, because these designs tend to have a strong display-oriented character, they have struggled to fulfill Futura®’s role as a versatile text typeface. Futura®100 Korean was created to address this gap. It is designed as a typeface that balances both functional and aesthetic qualities, seamlessly serving as both a text and display face.

For example, the Light, DemiBold, and Bold weights have a stronger display-oriented character, while Book and Regular are optimized for continuous text. Another distinctive feature of the typeface is that the design of certain letter components changes across different weights, giving each style its own unique character while maintaining a cohesive family identity. The vertex of ‘ㅎ’ (Hieut)and ‘ㅊ’ (Chieut) have the same design. This part is one of the most characteristic parts of the Hangeul type design. For the top portions of consonants like ‘ㅎ’ (Hieut) and ‘ㅊ’ (Chieut), there are generally two versions: vertex and two-storey versions.

Since Futura works well for both body text and headlines, variations were created that are suited to different uses. For example, up to the Medium weight, the two-storey version was used, while from Medium weight onward, it changes to the vertex version. This deliberate variation based on usage is one of Futura®100 Korean’s distinctive characteristics. Futura®100 Korean is also available as a variable font, giving graphic designers greater control and flexibility.

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. In concert with Bauer Types, TypeTogether has brought together a highly talented team of designers to create Futura®100 Korean.

Because the design team has had access to Renner’s original designs, the result is a typeface family that is faithful to the original design intentions, retaining a constructed but warm quality. Futura®100 Korean 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, Devanagari, Georgian, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Greek, Hebrew, Kannada, Khmer, 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.