 | |
| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Humanist sans-serif |
| Designer(s) | Erik Spiekermann |
| Foundry | FontFont |
| Date created | 1985 |
| Date released | 1991 |
FF Meta is ahumanistsans-seriftypeface family designed byErik Spiekermann and released in 1991[1] through hisFontFont library.
According to Spiekermann, FF Meta was intended to be a "complete antithesis ofHelvetica", which he found "boring and bland".[2] It originated from an unused commission for theDeutsche Bundespost (German Federal Post Office). Throughout the 1990s, FF Meta was embraced by the international design community[2] with Spiekermann and E. M. Ginger writing that it had been dubiously praised as theHelvetica of the 1990s.[3]
FF Meta has been adopted by numerous corporations and other organizations as a corporate typeface, for signage or in their logo. These includeImperial College London,The Weather Channel, the television stationsWSYR-TV,WIVT andWUTR in upstate New York,Herman Miller,Zimmer Holdings,Mozilla Corporation,Mozilla Foundation,Schaeffler Group,Endemol,Greggs,Digital UK (now Everyone TV),Liberal Democrats,Mumsnet andFort Wayne International Airport.[4] TheUniversity of Hull uses FF Meta Serif alongside FF Meta.[5] TheGovernment of Greece has used FF Meta Greek as the official government typeface since 2010.[6]New York Review Books uses FF Meta for their covers.[7]
Characteristics of this typeface are:
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A general feature of FF Meta is relatively openapertures, in contrast to the more folded-up appearance of Helvetica. This is believed to promote legibility and make the letterforms more clearly different from one another.
Development began in February 1985[1] when Deutsche Bundespost approachedSedley Place Design, where Spiekermann was working at the time, and commissioned a comprehensive corporate design program. As the typeface would be used repeatedly in small sizes, for identification rather than body copy, and printed quickly on potentially poor-quality paper stock, the brief called for a legible, neutral, space-saving, and distinguishable (in terms of weight) typeface, with special attention to creating unmistakable characters.[8] Whereas traditionally, typefaces are designed to be viewed beautifully large, the goal with this particular typeface was to produce a typeface which worked well for its primary application.[9]
Taking into account, research done on six font families and the constraints of the brief, the characteristics of what would become FF Meta began to take shape. The typeface would have to be sans-serif, narrow, with strokes thick enough to withstand uneven printing, curves, indentations, and flares to prevent optical illusions, open joins to combat over-inking, and clearly distinguishable glyphs. Its capitals and figures had to be versatile and clear, but not obtrusive. In addition to these demands, to meet Bundespost's needs, the family would also contain three fonts: regular, regular italic, and bold.[9] The typeface is particularly similar toSyntax, one of Spiekermann's candidate typefaces.
After completing and digitizing the typesetting font,mockups were generated for Bundespost's new forms and publication. However, despite positive interest from the German Minister of Telecommunications among others,[10] Bundespost decided not to implement[1] the new exclusive typeface for fear it would "cause unrest".[10] Bundespost, despite funding the project, continued to use a variety of different versions of Helvetica (before changing them toFrutiger).[11] Spiekermann wrote an article on the abandoned design forBaseline magazine in 1986. At this time Meta was called PT55 (for the regular weight) and PT75 (bold).
Several years later, realizing that neither Bundespost nor Sedley Place Design would ever use the typeface, Spiekermann decided to continue working on it. He eventually published it, along with other abandoned typefaces, through his newly founded publishing label FontFont. The result was the release of FF Meta in 1991.[1] This version of FF Meta was created by re-digitizing the original outlines and digitizing them inFontographer on aMacintosh. This work was done by Spiekermann's internsJust van Rossum andErik van Blokland between 1988 and 1989.[10]
Writing in 1987, Spiekermann gave these credits for Meta as originally designed for the Bundespost.
Cyrillic versions were developed for ParaType in 2001 by Tagir Safayev and Olga Chayeva.