Rotis

Last updated
Rotis
Rotisng.svg
Category Font superfamily; humanist sans-serif
Designer(s) Otl Aicher
Foundry Agfa
VariationsRotis serif
Rotis semi-serif
Rotis semi-sans
rotis sans
Shown hereRotis semi-sans

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

Contents

Monotype Originals Rotis versions

When the Rotis fonts were reissued under the Monotype Originals label, the fonts support include support of ISO Adobe 2 character set, OpenType features. The Rotis font names are capitalized.

Rotis Serif

It includes 55 Roman, 56 Italic, 65 Bold fonts.

Rotis Semi Sans

It includes 45 Light, 46 Light Italic, 55 Roman, 56 Italic, 65 Bold, 75 Extra Bold fonts.

Rotis Pro

It includes support of ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended characters. In addition, separate fonts for Greek and Cyrillic characters were also created. Greek and Cyrillic fonts support ISO Adobe 2 and Latin Extended characters, and support super/sub-script OpenType feature.

Rotis II Sans (2011)

Rotis serif Exemple-rotis serif.svg
Rotis serif
Rotis semi-serif Exemple-rotis semi serif.svg
Rotis semi-serif
Rotis semi-sans Exemple-rotis semi sans.svg
Rotis semi-sans
Rotis sans-serif Exemple-rotis sans serif.svg
Rotis sans-serif

It is a version of Rotis Sans designed by Monotype Imaging senior designer Robin Nicholas, and freelance designer Alice Savoie. It expands the original with extra three font weights (Light, Semi Bold, and Black) and italics, along with revised letter spacing and kerning, a new set of numerals with similar height to the capitals. [1] [2]

The family includes 14 fonts in seven weights, with complementary italics. OpenType features include access all alternates, case-sensitive forms, numerators/denominators, fractions, standard ligatures, localized forms (OpenType Pro fonts only), proportional/tabular figures, scientific inferiors, superscript/subscript, stylistic alternates, stylistic sets 1, 2 and 3 (OpenType Std fonts only). It supports ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended characters (OpenType Pro fonts only).

Naming convention

The typeface is named after Rotis, a hamlet belonging to the German town of Leutkirch im Allgäu, where Otl Aicher lived. However, Aicher named the font "rotis", in minuscules, since Aicher thought of capital letters as a sign of hierarchy and oppression.

When the fonts were reissued by Monotype Imaging in 2011, though, the font names were capitalized to "Rotis". This also affected fonts published by downstream foundries.

Uses

Not all review of Rotis have been favourable. Prominent typeface designer Erik Spiekermann commented that "Rotis is not a typeface. It has some great letters, but they never come together to make words that don't look contrived or uncomfortable. It looks best on gravestones and similar large architectural applications." [11] He has also joked that he wants the design on his gravestone. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optima</span> 1958 typeface by Hermann Zapf

Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helvetica</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface

Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frutiger (typeface)</span> Typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger

Frutiger is a series of typefaces named after its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at small text sizes. A popular design worldwide, type designer Steve Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann named it as "the best general typeface ever".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arial</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface

Arial is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and many PostScript 3 printers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Futura (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in 1927. It was designed as a contribution on the New Frankfurt-project. It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period. It was developed as a typeface by the Bauer Type Foundry, in competition with Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar typeface of 1926.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Univers</span> Sans-serif typeface family

Univers is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-century German typefaces such as Akzidenz-Grotesk, it was notable for its availability from the moment of its launch in a comprehensive range of weights and widths. The original marketing for Univers deliberately referenced the periodic table to emphasise its scope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gill Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface family developed by Monotype

Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Frutiger</span> Swiss typeface designer (1928–2015)

Adrian Johann Frutiger was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digital typesetting eras. Until his death, he lived in Bremgarten bei Bern.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnston (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface

Johnston is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. Johnston was originally created for printing, but it rapidly became used for the enamel station signs of the Underground system as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myriad (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface family

Myriad is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe Systems. Myriad was intended as a neutral, general-purpose typeface that could fulfill a range of uses and have a form easily expandable by computer-aided design to a large range of weights and widths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Gothic</span> Family of sans-serif fonts

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton. “Gothic” was a contemporary term meaning sans-serif.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Font</span> Particular size, weight and style of a typeface

In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece for each glyph. A typeface consists of various fonts that share an overall design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Meta</span> Sans-serif typeface

FF Meta is a humanist sans-serif typeface family designed by Erik Spiekermann and released in 1991 through his FontFont library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala</span> Typeface

FF Scala is an old-style serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala (1776–78) in Milan, Italy. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface Electra in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics. Eric Gill's 1931 typeface Joanna, with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syntax (typeface)</span> Typeface

Syntax comprises a family of fonts designed by Swiss typeface designer Hans Eduard Meier. Originally just a sans-serif font, it was extended with additional serif designs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Gothic</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

News Gothic is a sans-serif typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton, and was released in 1908 by his employer American Type Founders (ATF). The typeface is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin Gothic, also designed by Benton, but lighter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Handel Gothic</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Handel Gothic is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1965 by Donald J. Handel (1936–2002), who worked for the graphic designer Saul Bass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trade Gothic</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

Trade Gothic is a sans-serif typeface designed in 1948 by Jackson Burke (1908–1975), who continued to work on further style-weight combinations, eventually 14 in all, until 1960, while he was director of type development for Linotype in the US. The family includes three weights and three widths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Font superfamily</span> Group of typefaces

In typography, a font superfamily or typeface superfamily is a font family containing fonts that fall into multiple classifications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Sans</span> Sans-serif typeface

Open Sans is an open source humanist sans-serif typeface that was designed by Steve Matteson under commission from Google. It was released in 2011 and is based on his earlier design called Droid Sans, which was specifically created for Android mobile devices but with slight modifications to its width.

References

  1. Font News: Rotis II Sans, expanded and improved
  2. "Monotype Imaging Announces the Rotis II Sans Typeface Family". Archived from the original on 2012-05-10. Retrieved 2012-08-28.
  3. "Connection".
  4. "Greater than Before".
  5. Two Twelve Harakawa Inc.; Maestri Design Inc.; Jon Bentz Design (September 2004). "Typography" (PDF). System-Wide Signage Design Manual, Second Edition. Sound Transit. p. DS-17. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 13, 2010. Retrieved October 18, 2014.
  6. "Zebris Medical GMBH - Home".
  7. www.bulthaup.com
  8. http://www.esf.edu/communications/logo/ESF_Visual_Identity_Standards.pdf
  9. http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/october/peter-saville-anthony-wilson-headstone Archived 2012-03-14 at the Wayback Machine
  10. "Home". Norman Foster Foundation. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  11. Spiekermann & Hoefler; Bierut. "I Hate ITC Garamond (comments on article)". Design Observer. Retrieved 6 November 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. Spiekermann, Erik. "Rotis now has a Black weight, so my gravestone will have more punch". Twitter. Retrieved 23 November 2015.