Futura

renner's capital letters for futura were directly inspired by roman capitals from the time of emperor trajan. he began his design process in 1924 with classical roman inscriptional capitals as the starting point, then built the lowercase around that base.

“His work on capitals is directly inspired by the Roman capitals of the time of Emperor Trajan; simplicity and magnificence being the key words to remember.”

renner followed the proportions of garamond and jannon types from the 16th and 17th centuries for futura's lowercase letters. this classical reference increased the legibility of the otherwise radically geometric design.

“He followed classical proportions and elementary shapes of roman types for capital letters and the proportions of Claude Garamond and Jean Jannon types from the 16th and 17th centuries for lowercase letters which helped increased the legibility of Futura (Thomas).”

futura was developed in direct competition with erbar, which had been released in 1926 by ludwig & mayer, a year before futura's 1927 release. renner expressed disappointment that the slower design and release process allowed erbar to precede his design and establish the geometric sans serif category first.

“It was developed as a typeface by Bauersche Gießerei, in competition with Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar typeface.”