Typophile - The Mystery of Steile Futura (Topic) - Comments

Does anybody have this font?

clark.kent — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:42:12 -0700

Does anybody have this font?

I think that’s the most

kris — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 16:24:31 -0800

I think that’s the most important insight to take away from this. It makes me so uncomfortable every time someone says ‘you must do it this way...of order and unPC’, etc. etc. etc. I don’t think it matters much how or why we do what we do. What matters if it works - for someone.

There was a specific “aha!” moment when I read a quip by Matthew Carter that said “if it looks right it is right.” Perhaps too much of a simplification of the above idea, but this resonates with me. It has been my muse ever since.

—K

> It depends on who show

hrant — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:15:34 -0800

> It depends on who show show it to, and when.

Well, I showed it around a lot (including at two conferences, in a book article, one-on-one, etc.) and the result was I had to spend half of my waking hours explaining what it WASN’T! So I don’t mean nobody liked the idea - it’s that few people GOT the idea, which is my point: it’s due to a certain paradox of communication - some things can only be explained, not shown - in fact when you show them it gets worse!

hhp

showed around my alphabet

Nick Shinn — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:04:17 -0800

showed around my alphabet reform font

It depends on who show show it to, and when.
All it takes is one crazy art director to say “hey, I can do something with that”, and maybe someone else will pick up the ball and run with it, and it becomes a trend then an institution.
In Trissino’s case, he introduced three reforms in the 16th century — u, j, and “omega” (long o). The first two caught on 100 years later, the third never. You never know, and you really will never know if you don’t publish the font, and the argument (aka propaganda, promotion) that goes along with it.

“…some things cannot

dezcom — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:48:34 -0800

”...some things cannot be
communicated through vision, but can only be approached
conceptually...”

Like the sound of one hand clapping.

ChrisL

> If someone else describes

hrant — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:44:49 -0800

> If someone else describes what they see,
> it does not reproduce that vision for you.

I agree, but there’s a related paradox: some things cannot be
communicated through vision, but can only be approached
conceptually/verbally. I learned this the hard way when I
showed around my alphabet reform font - which was NOT a
font, but a nebulous set of structures. Kant sho dat.

> We spend too much time putting things in neat catagorie

That’s certainly true.

hhp

We can only trust in our own

dezcom — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:38:03 -0800

We can only trust in our own eyes to reveal what we see. If someone else describes what they see, it does not reproduce that vision for you. Designers should just produce what it is that they see as best and let the public decide later if that choice works for them.
We spend too much time putting things in neat catagories so that we can either point to catagorizations we approve of or to those we damn to hell. All of the “isms” or “istics” don’t absolve the designer from his or her duty to make it work on its own. Whether it is Modernism, Humanism, Artistic or Scientific in its intelectualized pidgeon holeing doesn’t amount to a gram of good. The society of self-proclaimed critics will find a reason to condem anything that does not fit their mould so just do what you will and go on to the next thing knowing you tried your best.

ChrisL

‘What is clear is that by

billtroop — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:36:49 -0800

’What is clear is that by 1932 he had dropped his insistence that artifacts of the hand had no place in the creation of modern typefaces.’

I think that’s the most important insight to take away from this. It makes me so uncomfortable every time someone says ’you must do it this way, because it’s un-something to do it any other way’, or ’this is the only valid way’ or ’such-and-such is out of time, inauthentic, inartistic, invalid, unchirographic, uncalligraphic, untypographic, unmechanical, unhumanistic (whatever that dreadful word now means in type), out of order and unPC’, etc. etc. etc. I don’t think it matters much how or why we do what we do. What matters if it works - for someone. Maybe that someone whom it works for will be millions of readers. Or maybe that someone will be only one. It doesn’t matter. Like Julia Margaret Cameron said 150 years ago when she was attacked for her fuzzy photographs, which people are obstinately still admiring, ’Who is to say which is the right focus?’

Is there an English version

dezcom — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:45:06 -0800

Is there an English version of the Bauer site Mr. Stephen Coles listed at he top? I only see Spanish.

ChrisL

Warning: This thought might

Miss Tiffany — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:46:29 -0800

Warning: This thought might be crazy.

For these display characters would have the traps been added for consideration of silkscreen printing or something like that?

Wait, so those traps were

Charles Leonard — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:54:33 -0800

Wait, so those traps were drawn for display cuts?!

According to caption, which is all I have to go on, the “Skizzen” [sketches] were explorations of alternate characters/weights for Futura Schlagzeile [headline]. I agree that the cuts are odd. They may indicate that in 1932 Renner was considering a new, condensed text font, but that is pure speculation. However, the arrival of Steile Futura in 1952 suggests that that was what he was considering.

Is that really what he [had] said?
Throughout Typografie als Kunst and Mechaniserte Grafik, Renner draws distinctions between form, which derives from “organic” processes, and style, which is the province of the artist. He defined the task of his time as, “… the conscious confrontation with the mechanical, the cleansing of mechanized technology of the old form-world of handicraft.” Because type formed its word images by a single application of pressure from the type, and not the ductile movement of pen over paper, anything that made reference to a process different from printing—writing—was not inherent in the “form idea” of the letter, and, if an artist was to work in a style commensurate with the mechanical era, artifacts of the hand and pen such as slope, stroke weight difference, curve thickness transitions, et al had no place in the “Schrift unserer Zeit.”
Charles

Wait, so those traps were

hrant — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 06:27:24 -0800

Wait, so those traps were drawn for display cuts?!

> by 1932 he had dropped his insistence that artifacts of the
> hand had no place in the creation of modern typefaces.

Is that really what he [had] said?
Because there’s a world of difference between implementing “artifacts” versus “paraphrasing” (as our Peter E has dubbed it). The former is done if you believe a given artifact somehow helps, irrespective of its -circumstancial- chirographic origin; the latter, if you think chirography itself somehow helps.

hhp

Exactly what do they

Charles Leonard — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:56:10 -0800

Exactly what do they represent? Are they some kind of drawing or trial cut? What is fascinating and instructive is to see how very different they are from the finished font.
Sorry to have been away so long, but I had to run down a copy of the 1978 Munich Typographic Society publication on Paul Renner—found a mint edition from a bookseller in Stockholm for less than $35 including shipping. The illustrations in the book are all of drawings done by Renner. So, none of the images I posted were of type. The drawings were for alternate forms and weights for Futura Schlagzeile [Headline] (Bauer, 1932). It appears to me that ideas Renner tried out circa 1932 reemerged 20 years later in the less curvilinear Steile [upright] Futura. One other thing to consider is that these drawings appear to have been done after Bauer engineered Futura oblique. The second and third images posted are referred to as “Kursiv.” Whether that was Renner’s term or one applied by those who cataloged his drawings is not clear. There is of course a distinction between cursive, italic, and oblique scripts. Unfortunately, the German word “kursive” makes it difficult to discern Renner’s position relative to italic v. oblique. In other words, was this a competitor to Futura oblique or an italic to accompany the headline type then under development. What is clear is that by 1932 he had dropped his insistence that artifacts of the hand had no place in the creation of modern typefaces.

‘What it does mean however

billtroop — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:45:21 -0800

’What it does mean however is that the intent is not self-expression; that expression happens in spite of the designer - because he is human - he can’t help it.’

Sorry, Hrant, I think you’re making too big a leap there. Au fond, you are making the assumption that intent can be controlled, either externally or internally, that intent is monolithic, that intent can be even be accurately and fully described. I can’t accept that. I find it too . . . simplified. Moreover, you would be the first to argue that nothing is black and white, grey is everywhere, etc. etc. I appreciate that you are trying to hone in on something here, and that doing so requires some brutal simplification. The reason I don’t think it flies in Renner’s case is that your argument implies lack of complex (and probably clearly articulated) intentionality on Renner’s part. And that is simply inconceivable in someone who is artist, craftsman, intellectual, above all German of just that incredibly rich period. Burke can be forgiven for possibly not having a clear idea what constitutes a German intellect of the Weimar, Bauhaus, Nazi and postwar periods, but he makes it abundantly clear that Renner was one, even if he can’t or simply doesn’t care to qualify it. And that is a creature above all of clearly articulated intentionality. Generalities will not serve here. We are talking about Renner, a complex man in a complex time. I don’t think Renner can be discussed non-contextually, and the context here is dauntingly complex and open to many more or less conflicting views. I too am guilty of trying to oversimplify at this point, but I think I am always trying to keep context in view. Renner was living in times when you could turn on the radio to hear Heidegger give a lecture, or go outside to get involved in a street fight over Max Weber’s latest lecture. In the midst of this inapprehensible cultural richness, you have the Nazis trying, largely successfully, and using the most brilliant propoganda techniques, attempting to impose a drastically simplified totalitarian world view that is fundamentally out of synch with the period that directly precedes it, and which could not have succeeded without Versailles, the Wall Street crash and the unbearable economic hardship that accompanies these events.

Against this unbelievably powerful current Renner stands firm, deeply isolated, but never wavering in his opposition, even when the personal risk is huge and the penalties he pays are draconian and humiliating. This is someone who by intrinsic worth, and tried in the most frightening circumstances, defines intentionality. Moreover, of all people here, you are probably best equipped through personal experience to understand such a figure. May I suggest reading Burke’s book, in which you might find a lot that you would understand better than most? Sereny’s Speer would then be a good way to buy a lot of context at a fairly cheap price.

Nothing a human makes can be

hrant — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:26:40 -0800

Nothing a human makes can be devoid of expression, and nothing made for a human should try to shun expression. The servility of type design doesn’t preclude expression - that would be inhuman. What it does mean however is that the intent is not self-expression; that expression happens in spite of the designer - because he is human - he can’t help it.

hhp

The Mystery of Steile Futura (Topic)

Stephen Coles — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:12:21 -0800

Hello friends. I’m perpetually in love with Paul Renner’s Steile Futura (AKA Bauer Topic or URW Topic). I’m hoping those with type book collections can help me out with more information on its history and design. Digital versions are available from a few vendors, but none divulge any more than the number of weights and a price.

Digital Versions
URW Topic at FontShop
URW Topic at URW++
Steile Futura (Neufville or Berthold?) at Bauer
Steile Futura (Berthold) at Phil’s Fonts
Steile Futura at Neufville

Articles
Renner article at creativepro.com mentions a design date of 1953-55
Renner bio at Linotype mentions design date of 1952.

Reinterpretations and Followers
Tasse (Guy J. Nelson) This is the closest to a revival but strangely omits the italics which are the most interesting aspect of the original.
Solex (Zuzanna Licko)
Pakenham (Ray Larabie)
Hybrid (Simon Schmidt)

In Use
L.A. Obscura: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman
“The War Within” movie poster
“A Girl Named Zippy” book cover
H.N. Werkman book cover

Thanks for your help. I don’t have Burke’s Renner biography. Anything in there?