“In 1976, a Wolff Olins team led by Dieter Heil (who later
co-founded MetaDesign and Sedley Place) began developing … a new
typeface, a mix of the Autobahn type DIN 1451 … and Univers,
equipped with round corners to be used foremost for the backlit
price displays at gas stations. Digitized and reworked at URW years
later, it was named Aral V2, comes in light, regular
and medium weights and was added to the company’s recent visual
communication.” —
Ferdinand Ulrich
URW’s digital version is displayed at MyFonts but it is not
available for public licensing. Other apparent clones or
reinterpretations were produced by Berthold (Aral-Type BQ,
most similar to Aral V2), DTP (Macarena
DT), Scangraphic (Vega More…
“In 1976, a Wolff Olins team led by Dieter Heil (who later co-founded MetaDesign and Sedley Place) began developing … a new typeface, a mix of the Autobahn type DIN 1451 … and Univers, equipped with round corners to be used foremost for the backlit price displays at gas stations. Digitized and reworked at URW years later, it was named Aral V2, comes in light, regular and medium weights and was added to the company’s recent visual communication.” — Ferdinand Ulrich
URW’s digital version is displayed at MyFonts but it is not available for public licensing. Other apparent clones or reinterpretations were produced by Berthold (Aral-Type BQ, most similar to Aral V2), DTP (Macarena DT), Scangraphic (Vega TV), and SoftMaker (Mercedes Serial). Formula Condensed, which was released in the 1970s or ’80s, is also virtually identical.
