I am a fan of Jeremy Tankard's Bliss. Go to www.typography.net for it. It has some of the rounded tops of Dax, but not all the way.

Very nice font. It reminds me of Frutiger or the signage fonts (Interstate, Transport, ...). The "p", "d" are like what I'm looking for but I just don't get the double storey "g" in this context. I'd also something to removes the stem completely on the "a", "m", "n", "u", etc

Sample of bliss

Well, he is aiming more at a humanist balance, and the two story g in the tradition of Johnston Underground and Gill Sans. It would look a lot better if properly spaced.

Ok, my final offer , but it will cost you a lot, Prokyon from Dutch Type Library:
http://www.dutchtypelibrary.nl/ProkyonRegular.html

Also, if you are stuck on the dax look, but just want a variant, you can look at the designer's other faces besides dax: FF Sari and FF Schmalhans.

Probably too flamboyant for a corporate logo, but FF Cocon has the stemless m and n you're looking for.

There doesn't appear to be an italic, but Barmeno has a very similar feel to Dax.

Thanks guys,
I was aware of Cocon (yes, it's too funky) and the other Dax variations from Hans Reichel (still all too round happy and not mechanical and cold enough for a tech company).
Barmeno seems like a copycat of Reichel's Sari.
Prokyon, I didn't know about that one. It's the closest to what I want so far. Yes, pretty expensive. I'm looking at the PDF right now. It doesn't seem to flow as well as Dax in text. Maybe it's a spacing issue. I'm no font expert. What's the deal with the upper tail on the "g"?

Sample of Prokyon

According to identifont.com, Reichel did Barmeno in 1983 (for Berthold), FF Schmalhans 96, FF Dax 95-97, FF Sari 99, FF Dax Condensed 2000. Tankard's Bliss is 96 (I think is shows influence of Reichel) and Prokyon by Ehard Kaiser (definitely influenced by Reichel) is I think this year.

I am curious whether the 'stemless look' has any other history than this.

So Hans Reichel seems to be the only serious designer to have explored this kind of stemless look (I've seen a few hacks around the concept though). Seems like there's an opportunity here, specially considering the popularity of FF Dax.

I've just found yet another close font to Dax.
EF Praxis by Gerard Unger. Perfect (more constant stroke) except for the stems again.

Praxis sample

how about my latest purchase

Fontbureaus Relay

Hmmm reading what you want by way of a more rigid look is Apex Sans:

http://www.thirstype.com/font_apexsans.html

It barely has stems, but does have the two story g and a.

It was I think designed with a very contemporary corporate look in mind, so you might find it suitable.

There are a number of stemless 'tech'-look fonts shown in the Bauhaus-style Font ID Guide. Some that I thought might be worth considering are T-26's 'Flux' (Part 3 of the Guide); 'Leger' (also T-26) in Part 4, and Tabasco in Part 6. There are others but you know best what you are looking for. Even good old Bernhard Gothic has stemlessness going for it. It shows that sometimes even 'old' can look 'tech' if you wait long enough. ;-)

Mike, interesting that a similar stemless look goes back to Bernhard. Thanks!

My point about the Bauhaus-style fonts is that even though many of the samples in the Guide are modern fonts, their simplified geometric forms owe very much to the styles of Herbert Bayer and his stylistic movement. Sans serif styles were already a measure of simplification over serif fonts, and the Bauhaus-style carries it further by reducing many of the forms to as simple a shape as possible. Bayer even wanted to reduce the alphabet to uncials to simplify it to its limit, I guess. The arc-shaped 'n' in so many of these styles is one of the earmarks to me, but the stemless 'n' (as in Dax and Bernhard Gothic) is a stylistic compromise to retain a bit more of the familiar form. The (to me) grotesquely ugly square 'tech' look takes this simplification to the direction of avoiding curved lines, and I think begins to lose contact with anything human (hence the 'tech' label). You can have it, if it means draining all the life out of the letters. Cunieform letters also avoided curves, but for a reason related to the medium (clay) and the writing tool (stylus) that makes much more human sense than today's computer-drawn squares. Sure, LCD technology (and it's predecessors) depended on straight line segments to render alphanumeric characters, but that is now 20-30 years old. How does a style derived from that look become symbolic of 'high tech'? And while I'm ranting, how about the fact that 'Eurostile/Microgramma', which is apparently the epitome of the Tech-Look, is over 40 years old!

How about Font Bureau's 'Armada'. Wow, there are actually a lot of them.

Thanks Mike, I have had your bauhaus page booked marked for some time now. It's nice to see you pop up like that. You actually identified Marten for me a few months ago.

I think that the context has changed enormously these past 10 years for so called tech fonts. They seem to have been appropriated by the youth scene in particular (rave, clubs, parties, dj events, sci-fi tv and movies, etc).
The more established ones like Eurostile and Handel are now widely seen in shops everywhere (even my laudraumat uses Eurostile for signage).

Parallel to that, the real high tech field has changed dramatically during the same period. The desired image of dynamic, young, fun, and hip from the 90's (Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Marimba, ...) has now been changed back to the more conservative image of serious (restrained), professional and efficient.

In that context, I think that its now very tricky to use a "tech" font for a tech company. Bauhaus lines (stemlessness for one) conveys efficiency and modernism to me. The tech side must still be present as a somewhat "square" look, although it must be much more subtle than before. Most important though, the conservative, professional but forward looking image must comes from a well balance (humanist?) body type font with clean lines (sans-serif).
These are the parameters I'm trying to play with.

For reference, I've played with latest suggestions. Here we go...

Infinity, Armada and Prosper are too squarish. They could easily be used for rave ads.
Infinity

Armada

Prosper


Bernhard Gothic shows its age (t and a).


Apex-sans is quite nice, but it's more in the vein of a Mittelschrift. Still, I'm keeping it in my list.


Then we fall into the really similar "Dax" looking fonts.
Flux (a slight bit too round)

Praxis (stems)

and Dax (variable stroke, overused)


I almost feel that Praxis could be modified very slightly to get what I want, although I may change my views after reviewing the fonts listed.
Very interesting thread. Thanks everyone.

Oh and about FontBureau Relay, I find the "a" a tad unsettling with its diagonal orientation.

How about FF Signa?

Or perhaps Orangutan from House Industries?

Yes, I saw FF Max last week. Very much like Dax except for the double storey g. The same author
Morten Olsen created FF Sigma and it's identical to FF Max as far as I could see. Maybe FF Max is a rewrite (including many more font weights).
I'm on some other projects these days. I'll have a closer look at it later.

FF Max Book


Orangutan seems more like a Handel variation.
Unfortunately, Identifont's web site doesn't
allow to test it and I find it hard to evaluate
a font if I can't play with it.

House Industries has a 'letter setter'. Here you can see it. I quite like it. I'm a big fan of Christian Schwartz's work.

To Bernard,

Just a correction: I'm NOT the author to FF Signa, Ole S

Hi Morten,
You should mention that to the FontFont people. They do list you as the Designer of FF Max font their web site.
www.fontfont.com/shop

Yes you're right (of course). Signa is rounder overall and with stems. Max is stemless. I must have somehow compared Max with itself.

Trivia: FF Sari is Barmeno, updated and expanded.

Heh. Nice rant Mike. You're right about the epitome of
Tech-Look being old faces. Handel Gothic too must be
over 30 years old or what?

What about Infinity, Bernard?

Bernard, if you're still listening, FontFont has
just released something you might be insterested in: FF Max.