Avenir: Font of the Future

Samantha Warren, ON THE TOPIC OF General and Opinions/Reviews and Tips and Tricks and Trends

Mar06 6

When I asked Doug, the Viget Designer behind the typography on the Inspire Blog ,why he used Avenir he replied “because it is the greatest font ever”. Doug is not the only one to have such an opinion of the geometric sans-serif typeface, in 2004 Avenir was named one of Typographica’s favorite fonts. When Andy Budd asked Cameron Moll what fonts would he choose if he could only have 6 his first reaction was “ Avenir, Avenir, Avenir. I’ve abused this typeface in both web and print work, and it’s held up to the abuse with flying colors.”.

In French “avenir” means “future”. This hidden definition makes it a perfect choice for the Viget Inspire Blog because web designers are innovators who are always looking to push the boundaries and limitations of their medium.

Adrien Frutiger designed Avenir in 1988 and is best known for his typefaces Univers and Frutiger. Frutiger explained his reasoning for designing the San-Serif in an interview with Linotype:

“Looking back on more than 40 years of concern with sans serif typefaces, I felt an obligation to design a linear style of sans serif, in the tradition of Erbar™, Futura®, and to a lesser extent Gill Sans®. These have purely constructed characters from which the element of a handwriting movement has been removed. Obviously this could not be an outstanding new creation, but I have tried to make use of the experience and stylistic developments of the 20th century in order to work out an independent alphabet meeting modern typographical needs.”

Avenir has become very popular in web, print, identity, and environmental graphic design. As part of their national identity the Netherlands uses Avenir on their site amsterdam.nl as well as in signage and brochures about their country. You can find Avenir playing a key part in the branding systems of the Reuters and Dulles Fort Worth Airport. On the web a customized version of the font is used in the logo for Shutterfly and the book and medium weights on purevolume.com.

Frutiger describes his typeface as “modern and at the same time humane” but I find Avenir to be an inspiration.

Qui Diaz said on 03/06 at 06:09 PM

Ahhh, I have used the Frutiger before and loved it. This Avenir is a beauty. Wish I was more immersed in this world of yours! Great post, Samantha.

Martin Ringlein said on 03/08 at 01:22 PM

We love Avenir .. it is actually the nclud brand font. It really is a great font.

Bart-Jan Verhoef said on 03/13 at 11:32 PM

It is indeed a very pretty font, haven’t used it quite enough myself. And as I am Dutch myself, there’s no excuse but to introduce it asap to a project.

By the way, I completely love this site, lovely work!

Ole Martin Kristiansen said on 03/27 at 05:07 AM

Avenir sure is a beautiful font, and is (i believe) a bigger challenge to look good than for example Helvetica or Futura.

Kyle Racki said on 04/10 at 07:18 AM

I’ve actually gotten into the trap of using Avenir almost exclusively for most of my idenity/print/web design work. When I’m experimenting with a new design I try dozens of typefaces, but with it’s versatility, I usually seem to want to come back to Avenir. I think this is a bad thing?

richard rawlins said on 06/06 at 06:11 AM

For as much as the world has embraced Avenir and loves it so...In my opinion the font has led to some laziness in design. The font has become insignificant at times in the general scheme of things.

Nearly every “typological kit of parts for any identity lists Avenir”.
Obviously for its flexibility, but it has now relegated/ elevated in some cases the inspiration of other elements on the page to more significance and in some cases balance hasn’t been achieved. “Slap avenir on it and it will look good.” This is not always the case.

Just as helvetica had its point of neutrality, avenir is the( no pun intended) neutralty of the future. Avenir does mean future afterall.

David Carson has a segment in Helvetica 2007, where he speaks of the inspiration of words and the fonts you choose. If we wrote/typed (who writes anything anymore) a whole bunch of words out, pasted them to a wall, and put them all in Avenir, what makes that word deserving of the type face Avenir, or what makes Avenir deserving of that word?