SRI 1: Katrina Hirakis

When one thinks of a typeface, Avenir would not be commonly thought of. This is due to its only current success in the print publishing of the famous poster, "Keep Calm and Carry On". 

Keep Calm and Carry On was just one in a series of posters of World War 2 drawn up by the UK Ministry of Information. The posters were displayed as a stark white text on a red background, with the only image on the poster being the royal crown of George VI. At the end of the war, the posters were collected and destroyed (only two original posters survived to this day). 


Keith Bates recreated the original font as closely as possible by taking examples from the original poster and the two others in the same series to create the marketed poster distributed today.


The closest pre-existing match to the original text is a font called Avenir, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988. Avenir is classified as geometric sans-serif typeface, who's name is French for 'future'.

• Avenir, "takes inspiration from early geometric sans-serif typefaces Erbar and Futura. Frutiger intended Avenir to be a more organic, humanist interpretation of these highly geometric types".

When originally introduced in 1988 Avenir's design features included three stroke weights which used two-digit weight and width convention for names [45 (book), 46 (book oblique), 55 (text weight), 56 (text weight oblique), and 75 (bold)]. Later, in 2004, Frutiger changed the font to address on-screen display issues ending in a reworked font called, Avenir Next. 

Today Avenir is used in not only the, "Keep Calm and Carry On Posters", though is seen throughout everyday life;

• LG Electronic uses Avenir as the primary button typeface for most of their cellular phones.
• The city of Amsterdam uses Avenir as principal typeface in its corporate identity.
• BBC Two has also begun to use Avenir as its main corporate font in its logo and identity.
• Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Hong Kong International Airport uses Avenir extensively as a part of its way-finding signage and brand identity.

Reference List:

1. "What is 'Keep Calm and Carry On'?" (2011). Retrieved from http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/guide_to_keep_calm/
2. "Avenir Next" (2012). Retrieved from http://www.linotype.com/en/2090/avenirnext.html
3. "Avenir" (2010). Retrieved from http://typophile.com/node/12462
4. "Avenir" (2012). Retrieved from http://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/avenir