Unica77 Mono

LL Unica77 is the only digital version of Haas Unica (1980) authorised by the typeface’s original designers, Team’77. It was re-mastered by team member Christian Mengelt from their own drawings. After publication in 2014, Mengelt set to work on a monospaced version.

He and the team didn’t envision such an extension back in the days, as monospaced fonts were rather uncommon in phototypesetting. These fonts originated from the construction principles of mechanical typewriters and lived on as machine-readable fonts and as typefaces for early computer screens. More than three decades later, however, monospaced fonts have gained renewed popularity for various stylistic and aesthetic reasons in digital type design.

They have become cherished tools for diversifying and refining the visual appearance of a font family. Because of their somewhat mechanical feel, fixed-width applications are frequently employed for the presentation of technical information, charts or numbers. They also work well for small size texts such as image captions, credits, and others.

In the case of LL Unica77, the mechanical appearance turned out to complement the assumed Swiss ‘purity’ and ‘neutrality’ of the typeface. An early customised version with extended x-heights was employed for the website of Alphabet, Berlin, in 2014. Yet another alternate style was developed for the public release in 2019: ‘low caps’, i.e. shortened uppercase letters. They add a nuance of sleekness to the four cuts and their italics, further increasing the versatility of the font.

Christian Mengelt (*1938) is a founding member of the former Team’77 (first called Letterform Research & Design Team), together with André Gürtler (1936–2021) and Erich Gschwind (*1947). Conceiving typefaces such as Alpin Gothic (1974), Media (1976), Signa (1978) and Unica (1980), they collaborated with type foundries and other clients across Europe and the US.

Before forming the team, Christian Mengelt had designed Gerstner-Programm (1964–67) for Karl Gerstner. André Gürtler had worked with Adrian Frutiger in Paris from 1959 to 1965, before returning to Basel. For many years, Mengelt and Gürtler taught typography and type design at the legendary Basel school.

Mengelt continues to draw and pursue new type design projects. Through Linotype, he released Sinova (2010) and Mengelt Basel Antiqua (2014). In collaboration with Erich Gschwind, he published Media77 (2015) through Lausanne-based Optimo foundry. He is currently consulting Lineto on the creation of LL Unica77 Condensed, a project which had been abandoned by the Haas foundry in 1984 and which is now scheduled for release in 2021.

Designed by Christian Mengelt/Team’77, with assistance by Maurice Göldner/Lineto, released by Lineto in 2019. Expands on Haas Unica (1980) by offering support for fixed-width applications in a wide range of weights. Latin language support by Viktoriya Grabowska. Font engineering and mastering by Alphabet, Berlin.