Reading the title of this article, the first thing that will come to mind for some is the funny expression of Buzz Lightyear — the Disney character — when he stretches his arms outwards and utters the famous phrase “To infinity and beyond!” before jumping into the void. If we were to make an analogy between the production of

閱讀這篇文章的標題時，首先想到的是Buzz Lightyear(迪斯尼角色)的滑稽表情，當他向外張開雙臂并說出著名的短語“到無限遠！” 在跳入虛無之前。 如果我們在生產

In addition to touching and revolutionizing many economic sectors of the time, including the film industry, the Moon mission opened up new paths in the field of graphic design due to the plaque anchored to the LEM leg, which reported the following words:

除了觸動并革新了包括電影業在內的許多經濟領域，Moon任務還通過在LEM腿上固定了一塊牌匾，開辟了圖形設計領域的新道路，上面寫著以下詞語：

The typeface chosen for the engraving was Futura, which soon became one of the most famous and commonly-used fonts in the design field.

用于雕刻的字體是Futura，該字體很快成為設計領域最著名和最常用的字體之一。

“富利，我是你父親” (“Futura, I am your father”)

The evolution of the Futura font is full of unique events and anecdotes.

Futura字體的演變充滿了獨特的事件和軼事。

One of the most fascinating aspects lies with its creator or, as some claim, creators. In fact, graphic historians attribute the paternity of Futura to the German designer Paul Renner. Renner began designing the characters in 1924 and published the font in 1927 as a contribution, commissioned by the Bauer Type Foundry, for the New Frankfurt. This was a magazine in circulation from 1926 to 1931 and was dedicated to international trends in architecture, art, housing, and education. However, some studies attribute the ideation of the character to Ferdinand Kramer, a German architect and functionalist designer.

最令人著迷的方面之一在于其創造者，或者有人聲稱是創造者。 實際上，圖形歷史學家將Futura的父權歸因于德國設計師Paul Renner。 Renner于1924年開始設計這些字符，并在1927年由Bauer Type Foundry委托為新法蘭克福發行了該字體。 這是一本在1926年至1931年間發行的雜志，專門介紹建筑，藝術，住房和教育方面的國際趨勢。 但是，一些研究將角色的構想歸因于德國建筑師兼功能主義設計師Ferdinand Kramer。

The doubt about the paternity of the character is due to an archive finding discovered in Kramer’s study: a sketch entitled “Kramer Grotesk” which still raises questions, mostly speculative, about the origin of the Futura (Pohlen 2017).

對角色的父權性的懷疑是由于在克萊默的研究中發現的一個檔案發現：一個名為“克拉默·格羅特斯克”的素描仍然提出了關于富圖拉的起源的疑問，大多數是推測性的(Pohlen 2017) 。

成為未來的重要性 (The importance of being future)

Leaving Renner the merit of designing the Futura, it is good to dwell on the characteristics that have distinguished this typeface from its contemporaries. While presenting some similarities with characters previously known to the public, such as Akzidenz Grotesk developed by the German foundry H. Berthold AG in 1896, Futura was much more successful for two reasons in particular: its name and its geometry.

保留Renner設計Futura的優點，最好將區別于該字體與其同時代的特征留在里面。 Futura展示了與以前公眾所熟知的字符的相似之處，例如由德國鑄造廠H. Berthold AG在1896年開發的Akzidenz Grotesk ，但由于兩個原因(尤其是其名稱和幾何形狀)而成功得多。

Many designers of the time designed characters to celebrate the new industrial era: they wanted to create something unique for a new world. We have had other examples from German printers, some of which are very similar to Futura.

當時的許多設計師設計了角色來慶祝新的工業時代：他們想為新世界創造獨特的東西。 我們還有其他來自德國打印機的示例，其中一些與Futura非常相似。

What you immediately notice is the difficulty in pronouncing or remembering names. Something different happens concerning Futura: it is a simple name and has the extraordinary ability to evoke and convey the idea of how the future and modern era awaiting humanity would look. A German name was not chosen precisely because the goal was to address a vast and universal public.

您立即注意到的是發音或記住名字的困難。 Futura發生了一些不同的變化：它是一個簡單的名稱，并且具有非凡的功能，可以喚起并傳達等待人類的未來和現代時代的外觀。 之所以沒有選擇德國人的名字，恰恰是因為其目標是針對廣大公眾。

字體剖析 (Anatomy of a font)

The influence of the Staatliches Bauhaus, the German art school, in the realization of Futura is very much evident. Although Renner was not an active member of the school, he shared its ideas. For example, he was convinced that it was necessary to create something new; to design new typographic models without replicating previous designs. The decision to produce a font that reflects the idea of functionalism and essentiality by depriving the useless character of decorations and graces was a typical element of the modernist current. Quoting Mies van der Rohe, it can be said that Renner operated typically of the Less is more philosophy. The character design, with simple and rigorous lines, incorporates the following geometries: square, circle, triangle. These features can be found by looking at the images below: you can see that the have been derived from the isosceles triangle.

德國藝術學校Staatliches Bauhaus在實現Futura方面的影響非常明顯。 盡管倫納不是學校的活躍成員，但他分享了學校的想法。 例如，他深信有必要創造一些新東西。 設計新的印刷模型而無需復制以前的設計。 通過剝奪無用的裝飾和優雅特征來生產反映功能主義和必要性思想的字體的決定是現代主義潮流的典型要素。 引用米斯·凡·德·羅(Mies van der Rohe)的話，可以說，倫納(Renner)通常以“ 少”(Less)運作是更多哲學。 字符設計具有簡單而嚴謹的線條，并結合了以下幾何形狀：正方形，圓形，三角形。 通過查看以下圖像，可以找到這些功能：您可以看到d源自等腰三角形。

其他Reich字體 (The other Reich font)

The path that led Futura to be adopted as one of the official Reich fonts is full of twists and curiosities.

導致Futura成為Reich官方字體之一的道路充滿了曲折和好奇。

First, the use of the Gothic style was predominant in Nazi propaganda — and this clashed very much with the rigor of Futura. At that time, Fraktur was used: a typeface born around sixteeth century from the Bohemian chancellery of Maximilian I of Habsburg as a form of elegant court writing. The Reich adopted Fraktur around 1930 and used it for several years in various media dedicated to the spread of Hitler’s National Socialist policy.

首先，在納粹宣傳中主要使用了哥特式風格，這與Futura的嚴苛格格不入。 當時使用的是Fraktur ：一種字體，起源于六十世紀，來自哈布斯堡(Habsburg)馬克西米利安一世(Maximilian I)的波西米亞大臣，是一種精美的宮廷文字。 帝國在1930年左右采用了Fraktur ，并在各種專門用于傳播希特勒國家社會主義政策的媒體中使用了幾年。

Another important event that delayed the use of Futura was the arrest and exile of Paul Renner himself, who, in 1932, published an anti-Nazi essay entitled “Kultur-bolschewismus.” It was around 1936 that things began to change and Futura began to appear on the pages of one of the most famous manuals known to the Nazi regime: the Organisationsbuch der NSDAP. Shortly after that, the use of Fraktur began to diminish to give voice to a more modern and contemporary and more readable style.

延遲使用Futura的另一個重要事件是保羅·倫納本人的逮捕和流放，保羅·倫納本人于1932年發表了一篇反對納粹的文章，題為“文化-博世主義”。 大約在1936年，事情開始發生變化，富圖拉開始出現在納粹政權最著名的手冊之一： NSDAP組織中 。 在那之后不久，Fraktur的使用開始減少，以表達一種更現代，更現代，更易讀的風格。

But it was not simply the desire for modernization that led the Nazis to change fonts. The transition to Futura was also imposed by the fact that the previous character presented, according to the opinion of the time, graces too similar to Hebrew writing, making Fraktur an impure character and not suitable for representing Nazi ideology.

但是，導致納粹改變字體的不只是對現代化的渴望。 過渡到富都拉的原因還在于，根據當時的觀點，先前呈現的角色與希伯來語寫作過于相似，這使得Fraktur成為不純潔的角色，不適合代表納粹意識形態。

美國尾巴 (An American Tail)

A typeface similar to Futura first appeared in 1929 in the pages of a magazine, Vanity Fair. Unable to use Renner’s font, Mehemed Fehmy Agha — art director of the magazine — decided to entrust the redesign of a similar typeface to the Baltimore Type Foundry. In honor of the publishing house, it was renamed Vogue.

一種類似于Futura的字體，于1929年首次出現在雜志名利場上 。 該雜志的藝術總監Mehemed Fehmy Agha無法使用Renner的字體，決定委托重新設計與巴爾的摩字體鑄造廠相似的字體。 為了紀念出版社，它更名為Vogue 。

The reason lies in a well-known historical event: the collapse of the 1929 stock exchange led to the imposition of a tax on typographical characters from Germany. This therefore led to the economic collapse of many European foundries which settled in the United States after World War I, including the Bauer Type Foundry, that at the time marketed Futura in the United States.

原因在于一個著名的歷史事件：1929年證券交易所的倒閉導致對德國的印刷字符征稅。 因此，這導致了許多在第一次世界大戰后定居在美國的歐洲鑄造廠的經濟崩潰，包括當時在美國銷售Futura的Bauer型鑄造廠。

But why switch from a graced font to a stick? The idea was to eliminate the emphasis on capitalized letters in favour of a more modern and egalitarian style, while maintaining an authoritarian and essential tone. However, the interest in Futura went beyond the walls of the publishing house, coming to knock on the doors of one of the most important government agencies on the planet: NASA.

但是，為什么從加粗的字體切換為木棒呢？ 這樣做的目的是消除對大寫字母的強調，轉而采用更現代和平均主義的風格，同時保持專制和基本的語調。 但是，對富圖拉(Futura)的興趣超出了出版社的范圍，從而敲響了地球上最重要的政府機構之一：美國宇航局(NASA)的大門。

首先 (The First)

Futura, along with its clones, soon became a mainstream font in the United States. At the end of the World War II, it was used in encyclopaedias, in tables, in graphics, in maps, and even in propagandistic elements of American politics. When the American government decided to adopt a new typeface, the choice of Futura was not surprising but it was not chosen as an aesthetic declaration of modernism. Instead, it was because of its ability to transmit authority.

Futura及其克隆很快成為美國的主流字體。 第二次世界大戰結束時，它被用于百科全書，表格，圖形，地圖，甚至是美國政治的宣傳元素。 當美國政府決定采用一種新的字體時，對Futura的選擇并不奇怪，但并未被選作現代主義的美學宣言。 相反，這是因為它具有傳遞權限的能力。

It is no coincidence that NASA used the font for its entire communication system: from food ration labels to indications on the Saturn V control panel.

NASA在整個通訊系統中使用該字體并非偶然：從食物定量標簽到Saturn V控制面板上的指示。

It was even used for the writing on the famous plaque, which reads as follows:

它甚至被用于在著名牌匾上的書寫，內容如下：

This plaque, however, does not only symbolize the passage of man to another celestial body, but also represents a deep history. The story of Futura is very intense, following the evolution of man from World War I to the discovery of the Moon. Although these past events are still very much alive in our collective memory, the font is still with us and currently used. Futura not only went to the Moon, but far beyond, becoming part of our human and cultural heritage.

然而，這個斑塊不僅象征著人類進入另一個天體，還代表著深厚的歷史。 在人類從第一次世界大戰到發現月球的演變之后，Futura的故事非常激烈。 盡管這些過去的事件在我們的集體記憶中仍然非常活躍，但是該字體仍在我們身邊并且目前仍在使用。 Futura不僅登上月球，而且遠不止于此，成為我們人類和文化遺產的一部分。

參考文獻列表 (Reference list)

• Eisele, Petra, et al. 2017. Futura: The Typeface. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

  Eisele，Petra等。 2017. Futura：字體 。 倫敦：勞倫斯·金出版社

• Burke, Christopher. 1999. Paul Renner: the art of typography. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

  克里斯托弗·伯克。 1999. Paul Renner：版式藝術 。 紐約：普林斯頓建筑出版社。

• Edwards, Phil. “Futura: the font that escaped the Nazis and landed on the Moon,” Vox (24 Febraury 2017). https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/24/14702206/futura-font-paul-renner-history

  愛德華茲，菲爾。 “ Futura：逃離納粹并落在月球上的字體，” Vox(2017年2月24日)。 https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/2/24/14702206/futura-font-paul-renner-history

• Heller, Steven. 2011. Iron fists: branding the 20th century totalitarian state. London: Phaidon.

  海勒，史蒂文。 2011年。《 鐵拳》：烙印20世紀極權國家 。 倫敦：Phaidon。

• Pohlen, Joep. “The Myth of Kramer-Grotesk,” Typography.Guru (31 May 2017). https://typography.guru/journal/the-myth-of-kramer-grotesk-r51/

  波倫，喬普。 “克萊默·格羅特斯克的神話”，排版，大師(2017年5月31日)。 https://typography.guru/journal/the-myth-of-kramer-grotesk-r51/

• Thomas, Douglas, and Ellen Lupton. 2017. Never Use Futura. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

  托馬斯，道格拉斯和艾倫·拉普頓。 2017。 切勿使用Futura 。 紐約：普林斯頓建筑出版社。

This article was originally published on Quinta Colonna on December 14, 2019

這篇文章最初發表在金塔科隆納12月14日，201 9