Designers: Otl Aicher
Design date: 1988
Publisher: Linotype
Design owner: Monotype Imaging
available in all of the styles:
only available in some of the styles:
Rotis is a comprehensive family group with Sans Serif, Semi Sans, Serif, and Semi Serif styles. The four families have similar weights, heights and proportions; though the Sans is primarily monotone, the Semi Sans has swelling strokes, the Semi Serif has just a few serifs, and the Serif has serifs and strokes with mostly vertical axes.
Designed by Otl Aicher for Agfa in 1989, Rotis has become something of a European zeitgeist. This highly rationalized yet intriguing type is seen everywhere, from book text to billboards. The blending of sans with serif was almost revolutionary when Aicher first started working on the idea. Traditionalists felt that discarding serifs from some forms and giving unusual curves and edges to others might be something new, but not something better. But Rotis was based on those principles, and has proven itself not only highly legible, but also remarkably successful on a wide scale.
Rotis is easily identifiable in all its styles by the cap C and lowercase c and e: note the hooked tops, serifless bottoms, and underslung body curves.
Aicher was a long-time teacher of design with many years of practical experience as a graphic designer. He named Rotis after the small village in southern Germany where he lived.
Rotis is suitable for just about any use: book text, documentation, business reports, business correspondence, magazines, newspapers, posters, advertisements, multimedia, and corporate design.
