Font Series: FF Meta is everywhere
FF Meta® is a wonderful typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, the font family was released between 1991 and 1998. A very readable typeface in smaller point sizes but also with enough detail to display in large point sizes. FF Meta is a sans-serif typeface which can be found all around you. The last several months where every I came (The Netherlands) I saw typeface Meta, in this font series you can see the many different faces of the FF Meta®.
Construction Billboard
A large size billboard with information about houses in Amsterdam, you can clearly see the power of Meta with the readability from a great distance to this billboard.
Vehicle logo Endemol
Waiting for a free pomp I spotted the logo of Endemol at the side of a car, it seems to be the Meta Bold, but I’m not sure about the letter - l - , anyone?
Big billboard
A big advertising for a Dutch company that sells small business software, used the Meta Bold for their billboard campaign. Also easy readable from a distance.
Bike Bag
In Holland you see the bike bags very often. Displayed is the logo of Sandd a new post company which uses the Meta for their visual communication.
Truck on the highway
Quickly trying to get my camera and take a shot while driving, I was mislead by the big company name. But the payoff is display in Meta Book.
Gulpener Beer
Even on my holiday I spotted the Meta, this time the Caps version got my attention. A Dutch Beer Browery Gulpener used the Meta Caps on various visual level of communications.
Supermarket Coop
A small supermarket company is using Meta Book & Bold to show their latest offers, I’ve also seen plastic bags printed with logo and text using the typeface Meta.
Staatsloterij / Lottery
Hollands biggest (run by the state) monthly lottery uses the typeface Meta! Not for all forms of visual communications but here I spotted a announcement created in Meta Book.
Meta Pickles
A Dutch company Volwater uses various weights of FF Meta to display the information on the bottles, a good example of various font weights working together.
Lekker bij Rosé
Huibrecht Duijker is one of Hollands famous wine lovers, he writes, tells and drinks wine. In this small booklet the typeface Meta is used in various ways, bold, caps, book. It shows again that Meta is a very eligable typeface for small point sizes.
Signage
This is an example of signage made with Meta Bold, created in our company I suggested to the owner of the building to go for Meta in all signage and wayfinding.
Shopping Window
Found through photo website flickr, a shopping window printed with various font weights of Meta in a nice design.
Elastic Bandage
Went through our medicines and found the package of Hansaplast who are using the Meta in English and Dutch text at the front and backside of the package.
No more headache
With this package of paracetamol you will never have a headache again. For all text on the package they are using the Meta in Bold and Book typefaces.
Avery Surface Cleaner
To clean and remove adhesive vinyl foil you can use the Avery Surface Cleaner, a clear usage of font type Meta Bold on the bottle.
Real Estate Sign
A Real Estate Sign from Lunshof is using Meta as their house type. A good readability with the use of blue fonttext and white background.
Gall & Gall
Hollands largest liqueur store is using Meta for all levels of visual comunications. The stores, posters and internet website is filled with the Font Family Meta. A Meta tread to buy your favorite wine or beer at Gall & Gall.
http://www.DesignWorkPlan.com
Last.. but not least.. The complete template of Design Work Plan (this website) is using the wonderful typeface Meta Bold.
Availability of Meta® Font Family
The Complete Font Family contains a package of 24 variations (via FontShop) and was published by FontFont (see their website for lots of Meta usage), is available in the following formats Mac PostScript, PC PostScript, PC TrueType. All styles Book, Caps, Bold and Bold Caps are also available in Italic. Starting from a set of 3 fonts at € 40,- to the complete font family for € 229,-. When bought at FontShop you can download the fonts after the purchase and start using them right away. Although FF Meta® is not in the top 10 bestsellers at FontShop I believe this is a very popular font.
- Visit FontShop for a complete overview of the Meta Font Family 1
- The complete overview of 55 variants of Meta Font Family.
- The Meta 3 Font package which contains Meta Hairline, Meta Thin & Meta Light. (Thank you Stephen Coles for adding the links)
- Wikipedia information page about the font Meta
Did you have your meta today?
Take a look around you and tell me.. Did you have your Meta today?
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© 2008 - Sander Baumann - Alle rechten voorbehouden. Read about me for more information.
41 Responses to “Font Series: FF Meta is everywhere”
Sander Spek
August 5th, 2008
Pfoe hee, flinke collectie. Ik heb altijd de grootste moeite om Spiekermanns lettertypen (zoals Meta, Unit en Officina Sans) uit elkaar te houden, alhoewel ze allemaal een duidelijke Spiekermann-touch hebben.
1.
Sander Baumann
August 5th, 2008
He Sander! Dank voor je bericht, het lettertype Meta heeft verschillende specifieke details zoals de onderkast letters ‘a, g, h & y’ waar ik het lettertype vaak aan herken. Via Identifont er is een lijst van Spiekermann lettertypen beschikbaar. Ben jij het lettertype Meta vandaag al ergens tegen gekomen?
2.
Stefan Vervoort
August 6th, 2008
Dat is een flinke collectie. Kende het lettertype eigelijk niet, maar er wordt toch overal gebruik van gemaakt. Ik zal dit artikel in de round-up stoppen.
3.
Sander Spek
August 6th, 2008
Die specifieke g was me inderdaad ook al opgevallen: die maakt ‘m duidelijk anders dan de Unit en Officina Sans. Ik dacht eerst bij mezelf, “nee, ik heb vandaag nog geen Meta gezien”, en terwijl ik dat dacht staarde ik voor me uit, naar de rug van het boek Software Engineering van Sommerville. Drie maal raden welk lettertype.
Over een omnipresent lettertype gesproken, altijd als ik in Duitsland kom, verbaast het me dat die Duitsers (naast Spiekermanns ontwerpen natuurlijk) maar geen genoeg kunnen krijgen van de DIN. Al helpt het natuurlijk dat de Duitse ANWB (verzorgt de TÜV dat?) en de Duitse NS (DB) al hun borden in DIN neerzetten.
Een tijdje geleden kwam ik aan op het station in Düsseldorf, waar levensgrote billboards stonden met de tekst “Wilkommen / Welcome”. In… juist, FF Meta. Dat was pas een fijn welkom!
4.
Sander Baumann
August 6th, 2008
Stefan - Dank voor je reactie. Fraaie wordpress themes maak je. Ik heb je website gebookmarked.
Sander Spek -
Geweldig! Wat is het voor boek? Onderstaand een afbeelding van de cover met Meta Book.
Volgens mij wordt DIN veel gebruikt in Europese verkeersborden, over twee weken ben ik in Duitsland zal eens wat foto’s maken van de borden. Goed post idee! Volgens WIKI is DIN-1451 de Duitse standard sinds 1936.
Dank voor je reactie!
5.
Sander Spek
August 6th, 2008
Het is een boek over software engineering, het ontwikkelen, implementeren en beheren van software. Het werd tijdens mijn studie Informatiekunde in Tilburg gebruikt voor een gelijknamig vak.
6.
Jim
August 6th, 2008
When I first moved here to the Netherlands, I was amazed at the amount of plain-jane Helvetica in use…even Helvetica Rounded Bold! Crikies — HRB is damn 70s fugly. Worse, many companies used Arial in their advertising, probably because it came with the computer and someone used it in a Powerpoint to describe the design.
But in the past 3 years I’ve seen companies really treat their font work intelligently, realizing that using poorly-kerned font sets really detracts from their corporate image, and Meta, Eureka Sans and HelveticaNeue are finally coming out to play.
Thank god. Holland is safe for designers again. :)
7.
Vince
August 6th, 2008
Mooie collectie. Hoog dat-is-waar-ook-gevoel!
8.
Sander Baumann
August 6th, 2008
Sander Spek - Vandaar dat je Master in Science bent! Dank voor je reactie.
Jim - Hi Jim, thanks for joining! I know what you mean and so true about the usage of Arial in all sorts of visual communication. It’s pre-installed so why change…. Many people don’t really think of the impact of typefaces, hopefuly someday it will change. Can we visit your designs somewhere? Thank you for your comment.
Vince - He Vince, welkom en dank voor je reactie! Inderdaad als je er eenmaal op let, zie je FF Meta overal. Fraai logo design op je website, aan welke wedstrijd doe je mee met ‘vault’?
9.
erik spiekermann
August 6th, 2008
de Duitse NS (DB) al hun borden in DIN neerzetten.
Where did you find that? The official typeface of the DB is called DB Type, a family of sans and serif versions. Designed by, yes: me and Christian Schwartz. They still use DIN at the bottom of the carriage for some technical information. e
10.
Sander Spek
August 7th, 2008
Really, Erik? Oh crap, then I should properly rub my eyes the next time. Thanks for the correction. (And good you can read Dutch ;-)
11.
Sander Spek
August 7th, 2008
Hmmm, I don’t mean to disagree with you Erik, but you mean this family right?
Direct link to PDF Example DB Type.
Maybe a lot of small train stations in NRW are not updated yet, but I doubt if that is the font I saw used for those dark blue signs with white text on the platforms indicating the name of the station. It always looked to me as the DIN Mittelschrift.
I did indeed notice the DIN Engschrift on the carriages.
12.
Sander Baumann
August 7th, 2008
Erik Spiekermann - Thank you for taking the time to comment, highly appreciated! Over the next few weeks I’ll be visiting Germany and will take some photos of type on signage and will post a article about it, with information about DB Type. Thank you again for stopping at my blog.
Sander Spek - Thank you for providing the link to DB Type, when I’m in Germany I’ll take a closer look at type and signs. Thank you for your comments, appreciated!
13.
Stephen Coles
August 8th, 2008
Great roundup of FF Meta in the wild! Your link to the “complete overview” isn’t quite complete. FF Meta 1 only has two weights (Book and Bold and their italics). A better link would be this one and FF Meta 3 which adds all the weights plus Headline, Condensed, and Serif.
14.
Sander Baumann
August 8th, 2008
Hi Stephen - Thank you for joining! Appreciated comment with the links to the complete Meta Font Family. I will add the links in the post.
15.
inspirationbit
August 8th, 2008
I really liked this post. I always enjoy finding out what fonts were used on things that surround us, so it was very interesting to look at your discoveries.
Btw, well done on the design changes here: I like the red icons on the sidebar, and the paragraph sign looks nice too.
16.
Josh
August 8th, 2008
Nice post, Sander. I too have noticed this typeface in the wild with some regularity recently. It makes a change from Helvetica, although Meta may soon become equally ubiquitous and thus dull.
By the way, “Endemol” is, I believe, a television production company.
17.
Sander Baumann
August 9th, 2008
Vivien (Inspirationbit) - Thank you for your comment! It was a fun experience to find FF Meta in the wild and thank you again for the design-critic review at your website, it improved my design! When can we expect a redesign @ inspirationbit?
Josh - Hi Josh, thank you for joining. I don’t think you just can compare Helvetica & Meta to eachother. Both sans-serif but totally different types with different purposes. I believe Meta has the power to become (or already is) a timeless font. Thank you for your comment.
18.
erik spiekermann
August 9th, 2008
dark blue signs with white text on the platforms
That is the special typeface just for signage, based on Helvetica. The stations can be used by more than one company (DB is but one provider, albeit the largest), so they cannot be branded for DB only.
DBType was introduced in 2005/6, so there’ll be a lot of applications still set in Helvetica, their previous typeface.
19.
Stephen Coles
August 10th, 2008
> although Meta may soon become equally ubiquitous and thus dull
I believe Meta is one of the few timeless classics. It’s been popular since its launch in the late ’80s and it’s not dull yet. As long as it’s used appropriately it will age well.
20.
Max
August 10th, 2008
so many bikes!
21.
muneefvc
August 11th, 2008
meta is my fav!
i am glad that i have it!
22.
Sander Baumann
August 11th, 2008
erik spiekermann - Thank you for explaining, appreciated.
Stephen Coles - I totally agree with you, FF Meta = Timeless!
Max - At some point I believe there are too many bikes here in Amsterdam.. Thank you for your comment.
muneefvc - Thank you for sharing your favorite typeface. Can we see a design with FF Meta from your hand somewhere?
23.
Davekos
August 11th, 2008
Ahhhh Meta has always been my baby. But I don’t have it.
24.
Flaneur
August 12th, 2008
Nice post. Here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, everything is in Frutiger. My favourites: Helvetica, DIN, Scala.
25.
Sander Baumann
August 12th, 2008
Davekos - Thank you for your comment.
Flaneur - Great photo blog you got! I’d love to see some photos of type & signage from Buenos Aires. Thank you for your comment and sharing your favorite typefaces.
26.
James Kurtz III
August 15th, 2008
Ah, yes, such a beautiful typeface. I used it on an ad for a forklift truck!
27.
Matt
September 19th, 2008
Ahh! These are nice specimens! Meta is one of my favorite typefaces… thanks for collecting these!
28.
Simon Robertson
November 18th, 2008
this is really nice, thanks!
29.
Josef Go-Oco
January 1st, 2009
I am delighted to see such a typeface in the wild, most especially here in the Philippines. Almost everybody uses Arial, Papyrus, and Comic Sans. Or those with, perhaps, proper education (self or not) use Helvetica. But Helvetica is already very ubiquitous, which, when added to its neutrality, makes it really boring at times. Meta is a refreshing typeface to see, especially is shops, menus, and brochures (among others) and I smile when I see it used properly. It’s like ogling women, really.
30.