Univers (Helvetica’s rival)

Many think of Univers as a rival to Helvetica, the other uber-popular Neo-Grotesque sans serif. Side note: Neo-Grotesques draw inspiration from my favorite typeface: Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Adrian Frutiger designed Univers in 1954. Frutiger is one of the most acclaimed type designers of the 20th century: he created Univers, Frutiger, Avenir, Serifa, OCR-B, Egyptenne, and many others.

People loved Univers when it was released because of its consistency of design across weights and styles; most typefaces released at the time didn’t have such a breadth. Univers is great for many things—titles, body text, labels—basically anything.

Univers anatomy

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