FF DIN

History

At a 1994 meeting of the Association Typographique Internationale trade association in San Francisco, Pool encountered Erik Spiekermann, who encouraged him to design a revival of DIN 1451 for release by FontFont, the type foundry Spiekermann had just established.

While based on the DIN 1451 standard lettering, FF DIN has additional weights and a far wider character set. It includes ranging (old style) figures and several refinements that allow it to perform better as a print and screen text face. Spiekermann wrote in 2009 that "Albert’s brief was to take the regular weight and subtly make it a good typeface. He did it so well that it looks exactly like the original, but much better, especially in smaller sizes. Albert also added weights...FF DIN looks as if DIN had always had those weights because Albert didn’t let his ego interfere with the job."

The family includes five font weights in two widths, normal and condensed, each with italics. The entire family includes extended characters such as arrows, fractions, euro sign, lozenge, mathematical symbols, extra accented Latin letters, and superscript numeral figures. Alternate glyphs include rounded dots, old style figures, and alternate cedilla. With time Eastern European, Greek and Cyrillic character sets have been added as well.

Distinctive characteristics

• Square dot with extra whitespace above the lower case i
• Rounded/extended shoulder of the lower case r
• Straight leg of the uppercase R
• Straight spur of the lower case a
• The geometric apostrophe with the bottom slant
• Lower-case L with a curl
• Slanted form is an oblique, rather than a true italic.
• Alternate characters: single-storey italic 'a', round dots.

FF DIN Round

In summer 2010, FontFont introduced a completely new drawn round version called FF DIN Round, including five weights: light, regular, medium, bold, black. Assisted by Ivo Gabrowitsch of FontShop International, Albert-Jan Pool wrote a brochure named FF DIN Round – digital block letters. It provides additional information on both the design and the history of round sans serif typefaces. FF DIN Round Pro also includes a Cyrillic character set for all weights.

References

• Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. .
• Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. .
• Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. .
• Spiekermann, Erik; Middendorp, Jan: Made with FontFont, Book Industry Services (BIS): 2006,
• DIN 1451-2: Schriften–Serifenlose Linear-Antiqua–Verkehrsschrift. Deutsches Institut für Normung, 1986-2002.
• ACLU Identity Guidelines

References

1. (25 August 2008). "FontFont Focus: FF Din". [[FontFont]].
2. Jan Middendorp. (2004). "Dutch Type". 010 Publishers.
3. (14 December 2001). "dot-font: Industrial-Standard Typefaces".
4. "FF DIN interview with Albert-Jan Pool and Inka Strotmann". FontShop.
5. (2007). "Made with FontFont: type for independent minds". Mark Batty Publisher.
6. (October 2013). "Albert-Jan Pool - Können Serifen funktional sein? (German)". Typographische Gesellschaft München – tgm.
7. "Funktionale Serifen?".
8. "Comments on Typophile thread".
9. Paul Shaw. (April 2017). "Revival Type: Digital Typefaces Inspired by the Past". Yale University Press.
10. (19 December 2016). "East Sydney Early Learning Centre".
11. "FF DIN: Digital Block Letters".