Typophile

Futura Circle Ratio

patrick-drake

I was wondering if anyone knew the exact ratio of Futura's perfect circle lowercase "o". In other words how much larger the "outer" circle is than the "inner" to make up the weight of the letterform?

After much struggling with math, I believe the correct ratio is 1:.625.

Then, you need to factor in the optical correction.

1.625 is almost exactly the Golden Ratio (1.618).

But be careful. The O in Futura is not a perfect circle. It's slightly wider than it is tall, at least that's what I see when I convert Futura to outlines in InDesign and then look at the W and H dimensions:

12 pt Futura by Adobe

Light
W = 0p9.383
H = 0p9.286

Book
W = 0p9.43
H = 0p9.358

Bold
W = 0p10.007
H = 0p9.647

interesting...
the reason I was asking...

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