The buildings of Austrian architect Richard Neutra have a characteristic elegance and linear clarity. The figures and characters that often appeared in his drawings and in the buildings themselves provided House Industries with the inspiration for a family of fonts. During the project they worked closely with Dion Neutra, who made photographs available to them for reference. Christian Schwartz created complete alphabets from a small number of templates.

There were no historical models for lowercase characters, but an experienced type designer such as Schwartz can handle the task. Once the large Neutraface family with its five weights was completed, it was only a matter of time before it found its way back into architecture on stylish house number signs.