NASA Apollo 11 mission
The plaque that was left on the moon, with the signatures of the three astronauts; Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.; and US President Richard Nixon
Paul Renner’s Futura played a significant role in the Apollo 11 mission, being the chosen typeface for various communication aspects within NASA’s systems. It was extensively used in labels, equipment controls, and spacecraft interfaces, providing clarity for astronauts, and aiding in their understanding and operation of the spacecraft. Its widespread use in the mission established it as a key visual element, ensuring streamlined communication and functionality.
The plaque left on the moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts bears an inscription written in Futura, making it the sole typeface to have ever reached the lunar surface. This choice represents Futura’s unique distinction as the selected font for immortalizing the historic moment of mankind’s first steps on the moon.
Futura is a registered trademark of Bauer Types S.L.
Space food packaging
Lunar map with the Apollo Zone of Interest
Apollo 11 badge with a bald eagle planting a branch on the Moon
Patches with embroidered lettering
Cabin repress instructions
Labels inside the spacecraft
Detail from an Apollo Training Manual
3 Comments on “NASA Apollo 11 mission”
At least some of these examples are using Spartan and not Futura. (One tell-tale sign is the terminal on the flag of the numeral ‘1’, which is angled in Futura but vertical in Spartan.) I’ve added a secondary typeface association to this entry accordingly.
It’s not surprising to see Spartan instead of Futura for designs produced in the USA in the 1960s (when Futura still wasn’t quite as common on the American side of the Atlantic as it is today). It’s also not surprising that Spartan is identified as Futura so often because they are extremely similar.
Linotype’s fairly exhaustive Spartan specimen booklet is available in digital form online, but tonight I took some time to also scan all the Spartan cards from the ATF Alphabets box set and posted them to Flickr.
The scans are only representative of ATF’s versions of Spartan, but they show full alphabet samples of their largest available sizes in high resolution, so hopefully they prove useful as additional reference when identifying Spartan uses in the future (along with the Futura Schriftenkartei scans recently posted to Flickr by Letterform Archive).
This statement needs qualification. The flag is angled only in the lighter weights of Futura; mager (Light), Buch (Book), and halbfett (Medium). It’s vertically cut in the bolder dreiviertelfett (Demibold) and fett (Bold), in the Condensed styles, and also the licht. This appears to be true both for Bauer’s foundry version and Intertype’s machine adaptation.
To further complicate things, early published versions of Futura halbfett featured an 1 with a longer and vertically cut flag (just like the “Kramer Grotesk” precursor alphabet). The flag in the mager was shorter, but likewise not angled yet.
Figure 18 (p41) in Futura. The Typeface shows the moment when the halbfett’s flag was trimmed, in a proof from c.1927/1928: “The original longer horizontal arm of the figure 1 can still be seen through the paper.”
The non-ligning numerals made for the three lighter weights of the foundry version kept their 1 with a vertical flag.
In sum, yes, the presence of a vertical flag in the 1 can indicate Spartan, especially if it’s about a North American use from the mid-20th century – but only when it’s the ligning numerals from one of the three lighter weights.
By the way, when there’s no flag at all, then you’re probably looking at Europe, the version produced by Deberny & Peignot for the French market.
Thank you for the clarification, Florian!