Home » Audi Once Had Fun Typography, Colors, And Dogs: Cold Start

Audi Once Had Fun Typography, Colors, And Dogs: Cold Start

Cs Foxtype 1
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We tend to think of modern Audi as a quite serious, engineering and precision-focused company, and it feels like their willingness to accept various forms of foolery, such as tom-, or play, such as horse, is limited at best. They’re a company that I would expect, typographically, to be hardcore Helvetica, maybe Futura. But that’s not the case! Audi once had genuine fun with their typography, and even modern Audi has a bit of typographic idiosyncrasy going on.

Let’s start with the fun old stuff, from 1973, which you can see up there. This is very ’70s typography, so much so that I think the vowels in there may tell you they noticed you from across the bar and invite you to do a line of blow in the bathroom before coming up to their room. Let’s look at the whole ad:

Vidframe Min Top
Vidframe Min Bottom

Cs Foxtype 2

Holy crap that kerning is tight! The filled in middles of the Ds and Os and Bs are unique to this cover, to showcase the vibrant set of colors available to the charming little Audi Fox there. It’s also worth noting the nice fox-face logo set into the “O” in “FOX” and just the fact that the Fox imagery was taken so far.

Cs Foxtype 4

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See, the dogs are there because they’re on a fox hunt! Get it? It’s one of the only examples of a carmaker showing their car as a prey animal actively being hunted, at least that I can think of off the top of my head. It’s a weird image if you’re trying to sell cars? But I suppose we’re supposed to believe the Audi outran the dogs and they didn’t get to sink their teeth into that delicious metal and rubber, hot bursts of oil spraying into mouths.

I do love this typography and design, though; look how good this ad for the Foxwagen (yes, one word) looks:

Cs Foxtype 3 Damn, that’s so good! The road just defined by the yellow stripe! The angle of the car! Fantastic.

Modern Audi is a bit more serious, but note the type treatment:

Cs Foxtype 5

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That’s a bit of an unexpected typeface, a little more friendly and casual than I’d have guessed just based on my notions of Audi. It’s actually their own special typeface, called Audi Type, and you can get it right here! It’s a nice, clean typeface, it looks like. I just downloaded it. Who knows, maybe I’ll need to make some Audi ads or try to fake an ID card or something? Never hurts to be prepared!

 

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Freelivin2713
Freelivin2713
8 months ago

My funniest car story is when I had a 70’s Audi wagon I got for $100 total.
The accelerator cable broke so I hooked some small rope up to the throttle from the engine out the hood through the driver’s window and pulled it to accelerate. I drove it home on back roads the whole way and the brakes weren’t very good either…I was a cheapskate

Brau Beaton
Brau Beaton
8 months ago

I once owned a Fox
or should I say
She once owned me

Damn I loved that car!

Citrus
Citrus
8 months ago

Isn’t “boot black” something horny?

Double Wide Harvey Park
Double Wide Harvey Park
8 months ago
Reply to  Citrus

Yeah, that color name wouldn’t quite fly today.

TriangleRAD
TriangleRAD
8 months ago

Since I started making promotional images for my car club, I’ve become more interested in fonts than I ever thought I would be.

Mechjaz
Mechjaz
8 months ago

Yessssss, talk typography to me.

I’ve found the quickest way to bridge the gap between engineering and design is to know something, anything, about typography. Having opinions about kerning will win the hearts, minds, and trust of your project’s designers, provided you acquiesce to their expertise and are respectful.

Collegiate Autodidact
Collegiate Autodidact
8 months ago

Ah, yes, among many such details, using the names of the colors to showcase the colors themselves is pretty clever; to be sure, that’s been done many times before and since then but it’s particularly effective here. Hopefully you all can do more posts along such lines, especially since cartype.com seems to be defunct now, unfortunately. That was a great website for perusing graphic design, typography, and other artistic endeavors in the automotive world.
Jason, you probably already know of this (as do long-time readers of the old site) since the designer is a friend of Matt Hardigree and had actually posted about his efforts on that site, but here’s an excellent post about creating a typeface based on one of the greatest emblems of all time, namely that of the Lancia Stratos, errant apostrophe notwithstanding:
http://mccauleycreativellc.com/blog/2012/03/jalopnik-lancia-stratos-typeface

Last edited 8 months ago by Collegiate Autodidact
AssMatt
AssMatt
8 months ago

That’s surprisingly cool, thanks for sharing!

Urban Runabout
Urban Runabout
8 months ago

Those Foxes were quite Dashing, weren’t they?

Geoff Buchholz
Geoff Buchholz
8 months ago

I had no recollection of Audi selling the Foxwagon in the US! I can’t imagine many have survived.

Urban Runabout
Urban Runabout
8 months ago
Reply to  Geoff Buchholz

A heavily modded one sold on BAT a few years back:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1976-audi-fox/

Anders
Anders
8 months ago

Love it, so fresh and clean. Bonus for the clever use of an excerpt of “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”

Canopysaurus
Canopysaurus
8 months ago

That hounds ad is the best hunting ad since Volkswagen featured Elmer Fudd in ads for the early Wabbit. Be verwy quiet …

Maymar
Maymar
8 months ago

It bothers me through invoking “The quick brown fox,” that the lazy copywriters did not jam in the full alphabet.

AlterId
AlterId
8 months ago
Reply to  Maymar

Damn those lazy dogs.

Keith Hinton
Keith Hinton
8 months ago

I owned one of these…a 73 brown sedan…should have spent more time on the electricals and water intrusion and less on typeface. Despite all the issues, still have a soft spot for it.

CuppaJoe
CuppaJoe
8 months ago

I also like how the OO in BOOT BLACK are overlapped, like the Audi logo OOOO

Chronometric
Chronometric
8 months ago

My college girlfriend’s friend had a Fox. And she was a fox. I am not sure why I remember this so vividly.

MATTinMKE
MATTinMKE
8 months ago
Reply to  Chronometric

I think you know quite clearly why you remember that.

Chronometric
Chronometric
8 months ago
Reply to  MATTinMKE

Maybe it is that recurring dream…

Michael Beranek
Michael Beranek
8 months ago

I hate new Audis. I love old Audis.

Grey alien in a beige sedan
Grey alien in a beige sedan
8 months ago

Imagine coming across an old Jaguar ad where the typeface used is Comic Sans.

Flyingstitch
Flyingstitch
8 months ago

The evolution to the later VW Fox of the ’80s is unmistakable. A co-worker had one of those, and I was jealous for a little while. But it was not a delightful ownership experience.

Wagen Volk
Wagen Volk
8 months ago

Who just said “Fuckswagon”? Now will you go and clean your mouth with soap.

Angrycat Meowmeow
Angrycat Meowmeow
8 months ago

I used to use VAG Rounded on my phone, maybe I oughta switch to Audi Type.

10001010
10001010
8 months ago

The top shot omits the ground shadow and it looks like the Audi is crowdsurfing on top of the dogs.

EricTheViking
EricTheViking
8 months ago

The typeface is ITC Avant-Garde Gothic with the terminals of C and G lopped off for the awesome effect.

OCS-BN
OCS-BN
8 months ago

Sorry, but that kerning doesn’t work for me. It is too aggressive. That last ad, all I can decipher is “THE CYBERTRUCK BY AUDI” 😉

OnceInAMillenia
OnceInAMillenia
8 months ago

They also, apparently, once offered actual colors on their cars.

It’s so strange to see how far they’ve fallen. Like you showed, all Audi photos now just look like a passerby took a photo of the background and a parked gray car was in the shot.

William Domer
William Domer
8 months ago

This for sure

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