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Typography · Sans-serif classes

Geometric sans

Built from circle and line: Futura, Avant Garde, Circular.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under typography: what do the letters look like, and how are they set?

styles make it: 66
as a defining choice: 5
as a usual one: 34
now and then: 27
avoid it: 6

Styles defined by it 5

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Art Deco1910–1939 · Western Europe, North America, Global / networkedThe glamorous modern style named after the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which disciplined ornament into geometry: sunbursts, chevrons, stepped forms and sleek stylised figures rendered in lacquer-smooth colour with metallic accents.
Bauhaus1919–1933 · Central EuropeThe German school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 moved from Expressionist craft ideals to a programme of 'art and technology' after 1923, when Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt made its printing and advertising workshops a laboratory for functional communication.
Out-of-Square Hangul Typography1985–present · East AsiaA Korean typographic movement that frees Hangul from the equal square in which metal and photo type had always set each syllable.
Hype Streetwear Graphics (Box Logo to Quotation Marks)1993–present · North America, East Asia, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Global / networkedThe logo-led graphics of streetwear since the 1990s: one wordmark or emblem on a plain T-shirt, hoodie or object is the product.
DTC 'Blanding' / Millennial Minimalism2012–2022 · North America, Global / networkedThe friendly, frictionless minimalism of 2010s direct-to-consumer start-ups, built for the phone screen, the Instagram feed and the unboxing.

Styles that often use it 34

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 27

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in typography