Typeface · Other
Avenir
Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1987 and released in 1988 by Linotype GmbH. The word avenir is French for 'future'. As the name suggests, the family takes inspiration from the geometric style of sans-serif typeface developed in the 1920s that took the circle as a basis, such as Erbar and Futura.
About Avenir
Avenir is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1987 and released in 1988 by Linotype GmbH. The word avenir is French for 'future'. As the name suggests, the family takes inspiration from the geometric style of sans-serif typeface developed in the 1920s that took the circle as a basis, such as Erbar and Futura. Frutiger intended Avenir to be a more organic interpretation of the geometric style, more even in colour and suitable for extended text, with details recalling more traditional typefaces such as the two-storey 'a' and 't' with a curl at the bottom, and letters such as the 'o' that are not exact, perfect circles but optically corrected. Frutiger described Avenir as his finest work: "The quality of the draftsmanship – rather than the intellectual idea behind it – is my masterpiece. (...) It was the hardest typeface I have worked on in my life.
From the Wikipedia article “Avenir (typeface)”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Using Avenir in a book
Test this typeface at both text and display sizes before committing; print a sample page at final size.
Commercial typefaces require a licence that covers embedding in PDFs and ebooks; check the foundry's licence before you publish.
Sources & data
- Structured data from Wikidata Q505337 (CC0).
- Summary text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).