Typeface Design for Lineto’s Brown

One typeface rooted in London's tube system, the other in communist East Germany

LL Brown is a geometric sans-serif designed by Aurèle Sack between 2006 and 2010, first released by Lineto in 2011. The design synthesizes Johnston Sans (1916) and Super Grotesk (1930), two historically influential but politically divergent typefaces, following a suggestion by Zurich designers and editors Lex Trüb and Urs Lehni in 2007. The family was subsequently expanded with additional weights, glyph-level revisions across the whole font, non-Latin scripts, and Narrow and Condensed companions published in Spring 2022. Variable font files with weight, width, and slant axes are in development.

Set in LL Brown, LL Brown Narrow, LL Brown Condensed

Insights

The conceptual premise—merging Johnston Sans and Super Grotesk—originated externally from designers and editors Lex Trüb and Urs Lehni, not from the type designer himself.
Post-release development included both additional weights and detailed glyph-level revisions across the entire family.
Non-Latin extensions (Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic) were each handled by dedicated script specialists in separate collaborations.
Condensed companions were a project Sack had previously abandoned; they were eventually completed and released as two full families in Spring 2022.