LL Autoscape

LL Autoscape is largely a readjustment and expansion of an existing design which we appreciated for its brutal simplicity and mechanical aesthetic. It has only a single weight, is rigidly monospaced and contains a number of special characters and graphic symbols. Originally created in 1987 by Andrew Welch (and contributed to by Carl Osterwald, Stephen Gilardi and William Johnston), its reason for being was to provide an outline design tracing the 9-point bitmap rendering of the Monaco font. Monaco was a standard of the earliest Apple OS, designed by Susan Kare, which has been popular for writing code since the 1980, and still is today. Chosen for its cold and mechanical character, LL Autoscape was brought to its present form for use in all graphic design materials produced for Die Schweizer Autobahn (‘The Swiss Motorway’), an exhibition conceived and curated by Martin Heller at Zurich’s Museum für Gestaltung in 1999, with graphic design by Cornel Windlin. This included exhibition graphics, a poster and invitation cards. The font also appeared prominently in the thematic monograph of photographer Nicolas Faure, entitled Autoland. Pictures from Switzerland (Scalo, 1999), also edited and designed by Windlin, which was published on the occasion of the exhibition. Faure, a neomodernist landscape photographer, focussed on the effects of the national motorway network on nature, landscape and settlements since its inception in the early 1960s. [lineto.com]

Originally designed by Cornel Windlin in 1996 and released with Lineto in 1998. Updated in December 2024 by Minjong Kim.