A brief visual history of Mark Simonson’s iconic typeface, a few of his thoughts, and my encounters with it along the way.

ca. 1981

Mark’s original sketch from 1981.

Mark begins the initial sketches. That distinctive ‘a’ is just as recognizable then as it is now. More about that in a moment.

1990–1993

Mark coins the name “Visigothic”, and the font begins taking shape. “With the exception of Futura, Gill Sans, and a few others, geometric fonts were lacking at the time,” Mark told me in a recent phone conversation. “Visigothic was designed to fill that void.”

1993

Visigothic makes its first public appearance on the packaging for Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama, designed by Mark.

That type treatment still looks gorgeous today, doesn’t it. This 80s child believes the cassette tape itself still looks gorgeous, too.

1994

Visigothic becomes “Proxima Sans” and is released to the public. “Visigothic was a silly name, to be honest,” Mark tells me. “Plus it didn’t showcase some of the font’s stronger features, such as the ‘s’ and the ‘a’. Sometimes font names are chosen specifically to showcase certain letters, and that was the case with Proxima Sans.” Ah ha! I think to myself. Makes total sense. (Imagine how many times you’ve seen a font name written with its own letters.)

“Proxima Sans” set in Proxima Sans.

1998

Late to the game, I access the World Wide Web for the first time in 1998. Soon after, I craft my first website using Microsoft FrontPage 98, completely oblivious to the art of typeface selection.

How embarrassing, all 640 pixels.

Gratuitous fadients, a swoosh logo, and Papyrus! Please restrain your envy.

2002

Gotham is released to the public. One would think this is completely irrelevant to Proxima. “The surge in Gotham’s popularity created new demand for geometric fonts,” Mark observes, “which in turn created new demand for Proxima Sans.” Also in 2002, Rolling Stone begins using Proxima Sans as part of a redesign by Matthew Ball.

June 2005

Proxima Nova, a complete reworking of Proxima Sans, is commercially available for the first time. Mark describes it as a typeface that bridges the gap between typefaces like Futura and Akzidenz Grotesk.

Type set in Proxima Sans (top) and Proxima Nova (bottom).

Sans and Nova in comparison.

Summer 2005

As a freelance designer, I’m invited by John Gruber to join him in creating a new website for Joyent, a relatively new startup at the time. Joyent is one of the first entrants into the cloud computing space. Paige Pooler and Bryan Bell are also part of the team, designing illustrations and icons respectively, among other things.

While exploring typefaces, I latch on to Proxima Nova as a suitable candidate for the project. By this time, seven years wiser, Papyrus is nowhere to be found.