With Futura, painter, book and typeface designer Paul Renner (1878–1956) created a typeface that is now considered the epitome of geometrically constructed sans serif fonts. It is based on the simple basic shapes of circles, triangles, and squares. Renner was less interested in formal simplification than in returning to the geometric construction of ancient capital letters, which he subsequently applied consistently to the lowercase letters. Futura was issued in 1927 by the Bauer type foundry in Frankfurt for use in lead typesetting, which was typical at the time.

The 1920s were marked by reform movements in design that also had a decisive influence on typography. The idea of the so-called New or Elementary Typography was formulated in the Bauhaus and found recognition particularly in the New Frankfurt movement. Renner’s Futura was predestined for the New Typography, but also for the New Frankfurt, because the proclaimed goal of the New Typography was clarity and functionality in favor of the greatest possible design impact. These aesthetic ideas were accompanied by economic demands, such as the consistent use of lowercase letters.