Founded in 1993 by Cornel Windlin and Stephan Müller, Lineto is Switzerland’s first digital type foundry. Over the last three decades, Lineto has collaborated with type designers from all around the world and shaped one of the most impressive and high-quality libraries available. The catalogue covers many different genres but is definitely best-known for typefaces that are deeply rooted in the history of Swiss type design. When people think of the contemporary Swiss Style, they first think of Lineto.
Laurenz Brunner’s critically acclaimed and immensely popular LL Akkurat, first published in 2004, is maybe the most famous of the bunch. It is precise, robust, and constructed, so everything you would expect from a classic, neo-modernist sans-serif. But in all its rationality, it also maintains subtle warmth and contemporary appeal.
LL Circular is a geometric sans-serif and Laurenz Brunner’s second official release after LL Akkurat. It’s a fresh take on the genre that has its roots in the Germany of the 1920s with typefaces like Futura or Kabel. LL Circular evolved from a purely geometric approach into a design with a lot of character that again combines purity with warmth.
And LL Unica77 is the only official digital revival of the legendary Haas Unica. Haas Unica’s original designers, like 83-year-old Christian Mengelt, joined Lineto to re-master the typeface from their own drawings, and they continue to participate in the type family’s ongoing expansion.
There are even more fantastic works to explore in the collection, like LL Replica by Zurich-based studio NORM, LL Lettera Text by Kobi Benezri which is inspired by a typewriter font designed by Josef Müller-Brockmann for Olivetti in 1968, or Arve Båtevik’s new take on Paul Renner’s Futura: LL Supreme. So make sure to delve a bit among the various typefaces. For all of them, you can get demo fonts after creating an account.
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This post is part of the Independent Type Foundry Advent Calendar 2022
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