Vialog™ is based on a normally proportioned transportation typeface that Professor Werner Schneider designed as 'Euro Type' for the German Federal Transportation Ministry in 1988. Behind its forms are comprehensive studies of the legibility of European transportation typefaces regarding their optimization and standardization.
Professor Schneider worked with Helmut Ness of the design agency Fuenfwerken to give the typeface a new look. The main idea was to create a space-saving text typeface [...]
Serifs: The serifs of the i, j and l emphasize the text structure and optimized legibility. (See figure 1)
Forms: The practical, open forms lead to optimal identification of the individual characters as well as high degree of legibility in texts. (See figure 2)
Numerals: The forms of the numerals were designed for the unmistakable transmission of important information. The numerals of Vialog™ distinguish themselves through their clarity and uniqueness. The silhouettes of the 6 and the 9 [...]
The Vialog™ typeface family allows an enormous range of typographic applicatons, from external directional signs to print media to screen design.
Vialog™ is no technical construction, rather, a typeface family modeled on optic and aesthetic standards.
The combination of Vialog™ small caps and OSF weights offers a variety of possibilities to give the title or table of content pages of magazines both structure and style.
Vialog™ is a large and versatile sans serif family consisting of four weights of roman with corresponding italics, each with small caps and Old style Figures, released by Linotype in 2002. Designers Werner Schneider and Helmut Ness based the concept for Vialog on the forms in "Euro Type," an unpublished type designed by Schneider in 1988 for the German Federal Transportation Ministry. For Vialog, Schneider made comprehensive legibility studies of the existing European transportation fonts, and combined and adapted the best features to make a new information system font family. He fine-tuned Vialog's characters and spacing with a special regard to the legibility problems of transportation settings, such as viewing type at distances and while moving. For example: cap I, J and lowercase i, j are common legibility problems in sans serif fonts, so in Vialog, these characters have serifs. In addition to its usefulness to the transportation industry, the Vialog family confidently meets the needs of corporate design and branding systems with its space-saving attributes for text settings, as well as the large number of weights and styles.
