"In typography, Futura is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. It is based on geometric shapes that became representative of visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933. Commissioned by the Bauer Type Foundry, in reaction to Ludwig & Mayer's seminal Erbar of 1922, Futura was commercially released in 1936.
The family was originally cast in Light, Medium, Bold, and Bold Oblique fonts in 1928. Light Oblique, Medium Oblique, Demibold, and Demibold Oblique fonts were later released in 1930. Book font was released in 1932. Book Oblique font was released in 1939. Extra Bold font was designed by Edwin W. Shaar in 1952. Extra Bold Italic font was designed in 1955 by Edwin W. Shaar and Tommy Thompson. Matrices for machine composition were made by Intertype.
Although Renner was not associated with the Bauhaus, he shared many of its idioms and believed that a modern typeface should express modern models, rather than be a revival of a previous design. Renner's initial design included several geometrically constructed alternative characters and ranging (old-style) figures, which can be found in the typeface Architype Renner.
Futura has an appearance of efficiency and forwardness. The typeface is derived from simple geometric forms (near-perfect circles, triangles and squares) and is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. This is most visible in the almost perfectly round stroke of the o, which is nonetheless slightly ovoid. In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals.
The original Futura design also included small capitals and old-style figures, which were dropped from the original metal issue of the type. The digital versions of these glyphs were first produced by Neufville Digital under the Futura ND family".
"Futura's success spawned a range of new geometric sans-serif typefaces from competing foundries, and remains one of the most used sans-serif types into the twenty-first century. Particularly during the 1950s it was used extensively by the publishing industry as a general purpose font. Futura remains an important typeface family and is used on a daily basis for print and digital purposes as both a headline and body font. The font is also used extensively in advertisements and logos, notably by IKEA (until 2010), Volkswagen, Royal Dutch Shell and HP in their print ads. For example, the font is used for the title logo of the 1999 film American Beauty. It was also used in various TV shows including Doug, Lost, Warehouse 13, the American version of Sesame Street, etc. Futura is also featured ubiquitously throughout the film adaptation of V for Vendetta, used for everything from the title logo and ending credits, to signs, newspapers, computer screens and other props. Wes Anderson is also fond of the font and has used it in all of his films. Futura was also Stanley Kubrick's favorite typeface.[7] In 1997, the Pittsburgh Steelers (an American Football team) switched to rounded numbers on the jersey to match the number font (Futura Condensed) on their helmets. It is also used on the Bell Canada and the current TV5 (Philippines) logo. Futura is also Animax Asia's main typeface. The Boston Celtics' championship banners are also in Futura Condensed. 2008 science fiction-fantasy film City of Ember features Futura Medium in many prints through the story. The condensed version was used in the 2011 role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as well as being used extensively throughout the Watchmen graphic novel as well as the movie based on it. In season 2 of Stargate: Universe, Episode "Common Decent-Part 1" the ancestors of the crew state that one of the two continents was named "Futura". There are several references to the name being a font in the episode."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)
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