Rotis II Sans Typeface Family

Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., a leading global provider of text imaging solutions, has released new fonts that expand the Rotis suite of typefaces, one of the company’s best-selling designs. The 14-font Rotis II Sans family, the latest addition to the Monotype collection and available from Fonts.com, introduces improvements that extend the versatility of the original Rotis design.

Created by Robin Nicholas, head of typography at Monotype Imaging’s U.K. office, and typeface designer, Alice Savoie, Rotis II Sans imbues the aesthetic quality of the initial Rotis fonts, designed by the late Otl Aicher of Germany and released in 1988. With Rotis II Sans, the classic look of Rotis extends into new weights and enhancements, such as the addition of case-sensitive punctuation marks and a new set of numerals.

“Robin and Alice have brought Rotis into the 21^st century,” said Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Monotype Imaging. “Rotis became popular soon after its introduction, and it’s still chosen for a wide variety of works including books, magazines, newspapers, labels, posters, packaging, billboards and signage. Over the years, graphic designers have asked for more Rotis weights, especially in the sans serif range. Rotis II Sans answers this request, while bringing the design to a whole new level.”

The original Rotis family was one of the first to employ matching subfamilies, which included Rotis Sans Serif, Rotis Semi Sans, Rotis Semi Serif and Rotis Serif. All share common weights, heights and proportions, enabling graphic communicators to leverage built-in consistency when combining Rotis fonts. However, today Rotis can be seen as falling short when compared to the diversity of new family releases, which often include additional characters, a wider range of weights and corresponding italics.

“Each weight of Rotis II Sans includes matching italics. This improvement alone extends the versatility of the design,” said Nicholas. He and Savoie also optimized the outlines of the original typefaces, made subtle adjustments to the proportions of several characters, added new characters and modified overall spacing and kerning — all reflected in the Rotis II Sans family.

Rotis II Sans comprises seven weights ranging from light to black, each with a companion italic. The fonts are available as OpenType Pro fonts, which include typographic features such as the ability to automatically insert ligatures and alternate characters. Pro fonts offer an extended character set to support most Central European and many Eastern European languages.