Avenir Next/Avenir Next Condensed
Avenir Next is the primary font in UMBC publications and is exclusively used in the university’s campus way-finding and signage system. It is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed in 1988 by Adrian Frutiger. Avenir was released by Linotype GmbH, now a subsidiary of Monotype Corporation. The name Avenir is French for “future,” and takes inspiration from early geometric sans-serif typefaces Erbar (1922) designed by Jakob Erbar, and Futura (1927) designed by Paul Renner. Since the original version of Avenir only included three font weights, Avenir Next was released in 2004 with 24 different font styles.
You can view and/or purchase the Avenir Next font family on fonts.com
Inter
From Google Fonts: Inter is a variable font family carefully crafted & designed for computer screens. Inter features a tall x-height to aid in the readability of mixed-case and lower-case text. Several OpenType features are provided as well, like contextual alternates that adjust punctuation depending on the shape of surrounding glyphs, slashed zero for when you need to disambiguate “0” from “o”, tabular numbers, etc.
Please note: we have transitioned the Sites web environment to Inter, and plan to transition other university-owned webpages to that in the near future.
Additional text fonts
Recognizing that circumstances may arise where the use of Avenir Next as the sole body font for brochures and advertisements is too restrictive, additional families of text fonts have been identified for use on UMBC publications and digital communications.
Garamond Premier
Garamond Premier, a serif typeface, had its genesis in 1988, when Adobe senior type designer Robert Slimbach visited the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, to study the collection of Claude Garamond’s metal punches and type designs. Garamond, a French punchcutter, produced a refined array of book types in the mid-1500s that combine an unprecedented degree of balance and elegance and stand as a pinnacle of beauty and practicality in typefounding.
Garamond Premier is currently used as a serifed alternative to Avenir and in UMBC Magazine. Any of the Garamond font families can be used as a substitute if Garamond Premier is not available on your machine.
You can view and/or purchase the Garamond Premier font family on fonts.com
Neue Helvetica
The classic Helvetica font family was redesigned in 1983, refining and adding to the original. This redesign included many new variants in weights, a new numbering system to identify the different weights, refining the characters so they have better readability, and improved punctuation.
Neue Helvetica Condensed is currently used in UMBC Magazine.
You can view and/or purchase the Neue Helvetica font family on fonts.com
Trajan
The four letters of the university acronym are typeset in a heavily modified version of Trajan, a contemporary electronic typeface modeled on the forms of ancient Roman incised lettering. In order to preserve the distinctiveness of the UMBC wordmark within the university communications environment, designers should not use Trajan elsewhere, for example as a display face in a brochure. Its range of use—other than the official university wordmark—is narrow. Besides the typesetting of the university acronym, its use should be avoided.
Note: This section does not specifically address the issue of which typeface to use in letters.