Industry: Design

Typeface Design for Aktiv Grotesk

Sixteen designers, ten scripts, one grotesque

Aktiv Grotesk is a grotesque sans-serif type family developed by Dalton Maag from 2010 through 2026, with contributions from sixteen designers. It offers three variable font axes—Weight, Width, and Italic—alongside an extensive OpenType feature set and an icon set. The family is described as supporting ten global writing systems and over 1,700 languages, with scripts including Arabic, Devanagari, Georgian, Hebrew, Malayalam, and Thai.

Set in Aktiv Grotesk

Insights

Development spanned sixteen years (2010–2026), reflecting iterative expansion of script and language coverage.
Three variable axes (Weight, Width, Italic) allow continuous stylistic control within a single font file.
The family received recognition at the Granshan Type Design Competition.
An extensive icon set ships alongside the text styles, extending utility beyond typographic composition.