That's A Nice Looking Font: Avenir

Mar 1, 2009 by Jennifer Farley

Posted under: Typography

I’ve been working on an ad/flyer for a client and I always like to try out some different fonts for headlines. Avenir was one of the first fonts I ever purchased years ago and I hadn’t looked at it for a long time, but I’ve decided to use it because I think it looks really clean and simple – very appealing to me and hopefully for the client’s audience. Here’s an example:

avenir1

I decided to have a look into (i.e. googled) Avenir to see who created it and this is what I found;
The font was created by Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger in 1988. It was influenced by the Futura font.

From the myfont website;

The word Avenir means “future” in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura , Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines.

Frutiger also designed Univers – a set of capitals and numbers specifically for white-on-dark-blue backgrounds in poor light for the French metro and Frutiger – which was designed for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (to name a small few).

I only occasionally buy fonts, mostly because I have so many on my computer and I tend to use the same ones over and over, but I admire typographers and their dedication. It is a real craft to put together an entire typeface with consideration for tracking, kerning, x-height, ascenders and all the other lingo involved with type.

Do you like the Avenir font or have you used it in your designs?

9 Comments + Add Comment

Heather T. March 1, 2009 at 7:37 pm

I do like it–thanks for highlighting it!

Heather T.s last blog post..A Card, Some Layouts
Kevin Montgomery March 2, 2009 at 1:21 am

I like the book and medium weights, but I find that the heavy and black weights start knocking the vertical/horizontal proportions out of whack. That is at least with the versions I have.
Chris Coyier March 2, 2009 at 2:16 am

I love Avenir as well. I had quite a long affair with it. I have recently started moving over to Gotham though, definitely check it out, lots of similarities although I think Gotham is a bit more geometric.

Chris Coyiers last blog post..How To Ask a Good Question in the Forums
Tracey Grady March 2, 2009 at 4:58 am

Avenir is a lovely looking font. I’ll have to put it on my purchase list. I like it in the same way that I like Futura, Gotham and Century Gothic – they’re all clean, simple, sophisticated and have a vintage feel.

Tracey Gradys last blog post..Provocative street art in label design
Jennifer Farley March 2, 2009 at 9:35 am

Hi Heather, you’re welcome!

Hi Chris, I had a look at Gotham – very nice, thanks for pointing it out.

Hey Tracey, yeah I really love Century Gothic too. I think I might overuse it but as you said it is clean and simple, very appealing.

Hi Kevin,
Yes, that’s the book weight in my little example above. I like the light weight too.
Trevor Collins March 4, 2009 at 9:08 pm

Avenir is a nice looking clean, uncluttered font yet with a roundness to it. I will have a word with my senior designer tomorrow about getting it.

I suppose the the big problem that we all face is that we notice small differences between fonts whilst most people outside the industry are not able to tell the difference. I guess that sometimes it is hard for our clients to become as enthusiastic as we do towards a grate looking font.
Jennifer Farley March 5, 2009 at 8:11 am

Hi Trevor

Absolutely! Sometimes I’m agonising over the position of a dot which almost no one will notice. Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Yvette Bernas May 22, 2011 at 6:51 am

Hello just came across your site and have been reading, do you perhaps also own another pet website that looks exactly like this one?
Jennifer Farley May 27, 2011 at 7:58 am

Hi Yvette,

Yes I also have a pet (and people) photography site – http://www.jenniferfarley.info which uses the same set up as this site.