It is based on geometric shapes, especially the circle, similar in spirit to the Bauhaus design style of the period.

Renner's design rejected the approach of most previous sans-serif designs (now often called grotesques), which were based on the models of signpainting, condensed lettering and nineteenth-century serif typefaces, in favour of simple geometric forms: near-perfect circles, triangles and squares.

The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line, and uses nearly-circular, single-storey forms for the "a" and "g", the former previously more common in handwriting than in printed text.

[7] The original metal type showed extensive adaptation of the design to individual sizes, and several divergent digitisations have been released by different companies.

[16] Despite its clean geometric appearance, some of Futura's design choices recalled classic serif typefaces.

Unlike many sans-serif designs intended for display purposes, Futura has quite a low x-height, reducing its stridency and increasing its suitability for body text.

Renner's biographer Christopher Burke has noted the important role of the Bauer's manufacturing team in adapting the design for different sizes of text, a feature not seen in digital releases.

At a time when Hitler and Nazi Germany ideologies were on the rise, typefaces were a strong indicator of culture and national identity.

Roman typefaces were rising in popularity, and they were becoming the standard text for printed documents when previously, German Blackletter was the default style.

When the Nazi regime rose into power in 1933, they utilized Blackletter typefaces to further promote German national identity.

They rejected modern type styles like Futura, which went on to become popular throughout the world, influenced by the Bauhaus and the English Arts and Crafts Movements.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Futura was also the iconic typeface used by American Conceptual artist Barbara Kruger.

[25][24] A Cyrillic variant of the Futura Medium typography was made by Anatoli Muzanov for the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow.

[28] Crockett Johnson used Futura for the lettering of his Barnaby comic strip, which started running in April 1942 in the newspaper PM.

First released in 1929, Futura Black is an alternative design that uses stencil letter forms, high contrast and triangular serifs, with similarities to fat face types.

[30] Example uses of the font include the public safety departments of the city of Boston, the "R" logo of the National Association of Realtors, title sequences of television programs such as The Love Boat and Prisoner: Cell Block H, the wordmark for the defunct discount store chain Bradlees, and as the wordmark for the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings from 1982 to 2003.

Steile Futura was Paul Renner's attempt to create a typeface that would be closer to the nineteenth century sans serifs than to the geometric model.

Renner kursiv, a true italic companion to the regular version, was made after Stempel had been taken over by Bauer in 1938.

2 was "Possibly optimized for small text: it’s wider, ascenders shorter, counters larger, and apertures more open.

[40] Released by The Foundry in 1993, reproduces the experimental alternate characters and old style text figures of Paul Renner's 1927–29 typeface Futura.

This version is based on the original sources of the Bauersche Gießerei, which had passed its typefaces to its Barcelona branch, Fundición Tipográfica Bauer SL.

Released in 1999 by Neufville Digital — a joint venture of Fundición Tipográfica Bauer SL and Visualogik Technology & Design b.v — it includes small capitals and the old-style figures that had not been made in metal types.

with alternate character designs, which also includes more angular glyphs found in early versions of Futura.

This release by Gert Wiescher is notable for presenting the original alternate characters planned by Renner.

[49] They have also appeared on a digitisation of Twentieth Century, Monotype's competitor to Futura, a release which allows them to be mixed and matched with the more standard characters and small caps.

[50] This free and open source typeface, originally called FuturaRenner, was digitized by Bastien Sozoo in 2011 while a student at La Cambre art school in Brussels.

[52] In October 2020, Monotype re-digitized and released as Futura Now, which is based on Paul Renner's original design with additional 102 styles.

[53] Though Erbar was the first of the new geometric sans-serif typefaces, the commercial success of Futura encouraged other foundries to create many new similar typefaces to compete with it, including Kabel, Metro, Spartan, Vogue, Twentieth Century, Airport, Semplicità, Bernhard Gothic, and Tempo.

Century Gothic borrows liberally from Futura letterforms, with the glyphs adjusted to be metrically compatible with another geometric sans-serif, ITC Avant Garde.

Brandon Grotesque is inspired by Futura but with an unusually low x-height, giving it a more elegant appearance for uses such as headings and display settings.