Brown

Ilya Ruderman: Brown is a highly popular geometric sans serif designed by Swiss type designer Aurèle Sack. This project came to us in 2015, a regular request to design Cyrillic. And so we did. Aurèle himself explains that he drew inspiration from typefaces of the first half of the 20th century — particularly, Johnston Sans and Super-Grotesk. Those were influential typefaces: Johnston Sans, for example, is still actively used in the London Underground. 

Yury Ostromentsky: We could say that Brown differs from other geometric sans typefaces in the fact that it is more renaissance-style in its proportions, and is indeed closer to Johnston and the London Underground. 

IR: Yes, but on the other hand there is a reference to post-war East Germany, where Super-Grotesk (designed as far back as in 1930 by Arno Drescher) was widely used. Such a mix, the London Tube and the GDR. 

YuO: Very sharp outlines make it look awfully modern.

IR: They do. And, also, Brown has lower contrast and is even more geometric. Sometimes it even feels like having reverse contrast. And it is much more honest mathematically, in the way it was made: there is a certain quivering, some symbols look considerably fatter than others. And that makes it even brighter and more geometric. 

YuO: Super-geometric sans serif!