I had to type a research paper for my typography class. A list with various fonts and typographers was passed around the room and everyone in the class chose one. I was one of the last people to get the list, so my choices were pretty slim. For no particular reason, I went with Adrian Frutiger and his “Univers” font.

As part of the assignment I was required to critique the typeface. Univers is not a very exciting looking font, but chances are you’ve seen it multiple times in your life. It’s clean, simple, and easy to read so it’s used quite a bit. One interesting tidbit is that Univers is used in the opening crawl of the Star Wars movies (But only for the name of the movie. For example, when it says “A NEW HOPE” and not for the entire crawl itself). Apple also used it on their keyboards for many years.

For my research paper, I compared Univers to Helvetica because they came out around the same time and look similar in many ways. One distinguishing characteristic of Univers, however, is that the capital G does not have a spur on it and Helvetica does.

I noticed something peculiar while I was adding paper to my printer today. I have a small Missy Higgins tour poster from Australia hanging just above it, and, for some reason, I noticed the “G” in “HIGGINS” looked oddly familiar. It was, of course, the Univers font in one of its 21 variations.

This just proves that it’s fate. Missy and I are meant to be together. Why else would I have randomly chosen Univers? It’s in the cards, folks. It’s destiny. I rest my case.