In the early 1990s it was not readable typefaces but eccentric ones that were in demand. Those who dared won and the conspicuous prevailed in the battle against “the end of print” (David Carson). Neville Brody designed the eroded typeface FF Blur using a Helvetica or Akzidenz Grotesk that he put through Adobe Photoshop’s blur filter three times, thus creating the fonts: Light, Medium and Bold.

At around the same time, the second volume of The Graphic Language of Neville Brody was published, with Blur on its cover. The book inspired countless young designers to follow suit, and thus the decade of filtered fonts dawned.


Neville Brody and FontShop announced the arrival of FF Blur with this postcard in 1992