Avenir & Gotham connection?

[typerighter]

On a recent trip to the Museo Picasso Málaga I noticed the initial entrance vinyl used Gotham, but the rest of the museum, including captioning used Avenir (beautifully letterpressed I might add). As with so many exhibitions the typography stays with me much longer than the exhibited work. Might we add Foundry Context to this debate on stylistic relationships? B.

[Dimitris Papazoglou]

...According to the similarities and the differences between the lowercase letters (Avenir, Futura & Gotham) this may help.

Dimitris Papazoglou

[fontplayer]

Subtle distinctions must be adamantly defended, or the whole type industry would be in a tangled mess that would take forever to sort out. No one wants to see that.
; )

[Nick Shinn]

I don't think H&FJ should be singled out and criticized for what is a widespread practice, certainly not if they're following in Adrian Frutiger's footsteps!

A "subtle distinction": Gotham's lower case, mining a well-worked vein from the 1920s (consider it public domain), is nowhere near an issue for a sleazy industry where blatant design plagiarism is widely condoned--and has been for centuries with little ethical progress-- where the producer of a revival is called its designer, and where only the novice appropriator gets called to task--more for callow ineptitude than bad intent. If you're a big corporation or have something of a reputation, then your professional nuancing of other people's work, or stuff you developed that ended up looking a bit like someone else's work, won't raise much of an eyebrow.

The sameness is fostered by what the market asks for, which is retro, retro, and more of the same.
And typophiles who harp about how glyphs that "draw attention to themselves" will compromise readability.
And typophiles who like nothing better than to discuss good old Garamond and Helvetica, rather than anything, God forbid, designed in recent memory. (This thread an exception.)

**

Clients often give me the opportunity to be unethical.
That's not the same as asking me to do unethical things, of course.

Presently I'm working on a commission for an agency that wants a unicase version of a well-known typeface for its client. The art director hasn't commissioned this kind of work before, and more power to him, but he needs advice on the legal technicalities, which is what I'm here for, among other things. So I said he could check out the EULA, contact the foundry, and see if they could do the job, and that I could do it too -- except that I would adapt one of my fonts to be "similar to", because point piracy and a verbatim copy is illegal. But there wouldn't be a problem, as it's a pretty generic typeface anyway.

Of course, I would have preferred if the agency had contacted me upfront before they pitched their client, and said "Nick, we need a unicase a bit like so-and-so", which would have given me more design space, but that would have invested too much in what was, no doubt, one of several different creative approaches they were presenting.

**

Even those foundries and publishers which produce a lot of new designs also publish some work that is straight-up derivative.

As well as criticize conservatism and plagiarism, it's good to big up the interesting new work -- so props to Stephen Coles and his ongoing "top new fonts" projects at FontShop.com and Typographica.

[Chipman223]

Oddly enough my two favorite typefaces. My current in-house job employs Avenir for the identity, but I find Gotham to be a more updated version. The biggest differance is the elongation in Gotham. The easiest way to tell the two apart is the capital M. Lets remember the best form of flattery is imitation. Who better to imitate than Mr. Frutiger?

Shall we talk about Swiss 721 and Helvetica? or Freeway and Frutiger next? perhaps Filosofia and Bodoni? Mrs Eaves and Baskerville?

[rs_donsata]

Such a strong coincidence and interesting finding.

I don't think H&FJ were imitating Avenir but ended on a very similar typographic structure by obvious reasons.

It's interesting how at the regular weight differences are so subtle but get accentuated at the extreme iterations.

Héctor

[Bert Vanderveen]

Shall we talk about Swiss 721 and Helvetica? or Freeway and Frutiger next? perhaps Filosofia and Bodoni? Mrs Eaves and Baskerville?

Please, Chipman, let’s so not go there… ; )

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

[David Rault]

Well, after a few days of chatting and arguing, it seems that the answer is not as clear as it sounds and the opinions are different. I wish I could have a word about this with Tobias Frere-Jones and Adrian Frutiger, maybe they would have the final word about this discussion.

As of myself, I think H&FJ arrived to a fairly similar typeface using quite different ways, especially with the capitals, but I wouldn't think the same way about the lower case letters, they really share way too many characteristics. Anyway, both typefaces are brilliant and have enough singular characteristics not to be called "rip-offs" or something. I like them both, i'd use them both. And I will write two separate articles about them in my upcoming book.

thanks to all the contributors (I mean, those who had something else to say than "no").

dr

[Thomas Phinney]

I see Futura, Avenir and Gotham as being something of a continuum of geometric sans design. The middle of that continuum (Avenir) is the sweet spot for being unobtrusive and the best of the three for text. Futura is more geometric and sterile-feeling, while Gotham is more humanistic but also more quirky.

In the same vein, Futura has lengthy ascenders/descenders while Gotham has really short ones.

Cheers,

T

[adnix]

Well, as for the original question of being 'stylistically related' I feel that to be related, you need to come from the same creator. They definitely appear to be stylistically similar, IMO.

David

[Textwrapper]

I can't tell these apart.
Now, everyone, back to work.

[Shanx]

My personal preference is for Avenir. Gotham is a nifty little font itself with some micro-minor distinctions but too expensive.

For those looking for a somewhat affordable alternative that's not a great departure from both of these, try Proxima Nova:

http://www.ms-studio.com/FontSales/proximanova.html

[AGL]

Gotham for titles, Avenir for Text.

[Chipman223]

"Gotham is a nifty little font itself with some micro-minor distinctions but too expensive."
Unless you're talking about the updated Avenir Next with comperable weights and styles....
Avenir Next: $1,199
Gotham: $397

I like gotham because I think the cap height/x height proportions are better. I enjoy the fact that the caps aren't quite as tall in proportion to Avenir. The Ultra weight in gotham does look a little silly though.

[Gary Lonergan]

I have used both types and am not a fan. They set wide and I always felt like putting minus tracking on them. (But didn't) But than again I like the more humanist sans like Bliss and Scala Sans. Its down to personal preference really

[AGL]

" i can clearly see the influence of late 19th grotesques in gotham "

I have found something that may be related, Two Lines English Egyptian (1st picture in this article).

[Chipman223]

André, I mentioned your last post here. Very interesting article.