Typeface Design for Lineto's Medium
Six years from a single specimen-book sample to a five-weight release
LL Medium was designed by Robert Huber between 2013 and 2019 and released by Lineto in 2020, with font engineering and mastering by Alphabet, Berlin. It derives from a bold late-19th-century sans serif published by Bauer & Co. in the early 1880s, with Huber working initially from a rudimentary sample found in an 1894 type specimen book. Over six years the design grew from a rough single cut—first appearing in a Bahrain Venice Architecture Biennial publication—into a five-weight family. Huber's iterative refinements improved optical balance and formal coherence while preserving the original's idiosyncratic blend of upper and lowercase details.
Set in LL Medium
Insights
- Huber's source material was a rudimentary sample from an 1894 type specimen book; he later identified related American precursors including White & Co.'s Grotesk Nr.1 from the 1860s.
- The design deliberately preserves heterogeneous upper/lowercase contrast rather than homogenising letterforms toward later grotesque conventions.
- Refinements were process-based and iterative over six years, improving optical balance and coherence across all weights.
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