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Typography · Sans-serif classes

Grotesque & neo-grotesque

Neutral, rational sans: Akzidenz-Grotesk, Helvetica, Univers.

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

styles make it: 106
as a defining choice: 22
as a usual one: 48
now and then: 36
avoid it: 39

Styles defined by it 22

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

Vorticism & BLAST Typography1914–1920 · Western EuropeLondon's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915).
Russian Constructivism1917–1934 · Eastern EuropeConstructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society.
Die Neue Typographie1923–1940 · Central Europe, Western EuropeThe programme that turned avant-garde experiment into a functional typographic method, named by Moholy-Nagy in 1923 and codified in Jan Tschichold's 'elementare typographie' (1925) and Die neue Typographie (1928).
International Typographic Style1950–1975 · Central EuropeA post-war refinement of the New Typography in which the mathematical grid, objective photography and neo-grotesque sans-serifs were used to communicate with clarity and neutrality.
Zagreb Modernist Graphics (EXAT 51 to Teatar &TD)1951–1975 · Southern Europe, Central EuropeZagreb graphic design grown from the EXAT 51 manifesto (1951), which tied abstract art to visual communication.
HfG Ulm Systematic Design1953–1968 · Central EuropeThe Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm (1953–1968) was founded as the successor to the Bauhaus.
West German Conceptual Film & Culture Poster (Hillmann and Rambow)1953–1990 · Central EuropeThe art-film and culture poster Hans Hillmann developed from 1953 for the West German distributors Neue Filmkunst and Atlas Film, which his Kassel student Gunter Rambow took with Gerhard Lienemeyer into staged photo posters for theatre, publishers and protest.
Corporate Identity Modernism1955–1990 · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedModernist reduction applied to corporate communication.
Blue Note Jazz Sleeve Modernism1956–1967 · North AmericaThe record-sleeve language of Blue Note Records, set by art director Reid Miles, who designed some 350 twelve-inch LP covers between about 1956 and 1967, often around Francis Wolff's session photographs.
British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert)1958–present · Western EuropeThe national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965.
Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella)1960–1970 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe in-house graphics of Buenos Aires' Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1960–1970, led by Juan Carlos Distéfano with Juan Andralis, Rubén Fontana, Norberto Coppola and Carlos Soler.
Total Design & Dutch Functionalism1963–1990 · Western EuropeThe Dutch strand of systematic modernism took shape when Wim Crouwel, Benno Wissing, Friso Kramer and Paul and Dick Schwarz founded Total Design in Amsterdam in 1963 as the country's first multidisciplinary studio.
Hong Kong East–West Graphic Modernism1964–present · East AsiaThe studio design of Hong Kong from the 1960s, made for banks, developers, trade bodies, hotels and cultural events in a city that had to speak Chinese and English at once.
Munich 1972 Olympic Design (Otl Aicher)1966–1972 · Central EuropeThe visual programme Otl Aicher's department made for the 1972 Munich Olympics, the 'cheerful Games' meant to show a democratic, modest West Germany.
Swiss Punk / New Wave Typography1968–1990 · Central Europe, North AmericaA rebellion from inside the Swiss school: Wolfgang Weingart and his Basel students kept the grotesque and the grid but set them in motion with extreme letterspacing, stepped and angled lines, rules and bars, enlarged halftone screens and layered film montage.
Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai)1973–present · Southeast AsiaA Thai type genre that drops the head loops of most Thai letters, so the script reads as an even sans like Helvetica.
Hauntology & Ghost Box Design2004–present · Western EuropeSleeves and print that rebuild a misremembered British past from the public graphics of roughly 1958–1978.
Neo-Swiss Revival2005–present · Global / networked, Central Europe, Western EuropeA contemporary revival of the International Typographic Style, fuelled by digital re-releases of neo-grotesques and by studios such as Experimental Jetset and Norm: modular grids, flush-left grotesque type, huge tightly set headlines and flat fields of black, white and one signal colour.
GOV.UK Design (GDS Style)2012–present · Western EuropeThe text-led design of GOV.UK, the UK government's single website, built by the Government Digital Service from 2012 and codified in the GOV.UK Design System (2018).
Plain Tobacco Packaging2012–present · Oceania, Western Europe, Northern Europe, North America, Global / networkedA packaging language written into law to strip tobacco of persuasion.
Front-of-Pack Warning Octagons (Latin American Food Warning Seals)2016–present · Latin America & CaribbeanA state warning system stacked on commercial food packs.
Dark Tech Minimalism2019–present · North America, Global / networkedThe dark, restrained aesthetic of developer tools and SaaS landing pages since about 2019: near-black grounds, grey type ramps, a neutral grotesque such as Inter, hairline borders, soft radial glows and bento grids of crisp product screenshots.

Styles that often use it 48

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

Styles that use it now and then 36

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.

Straight photographyin 55 of 106
Ornament-freein 51 of 106
Rational & objectivein 44 of 106
Rectilinearin 54 of 106
Geometric primitivesin 57 of 106
Dynamic asymmetryin 52 of 106

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in typography