In times of the ancients, sans-serif condensed, compressed, ultra-compressed fonts usually had flat sides. If you look at Univers as it gets narrower, curves get squeezed until they become completely flat. These ultra-compressed fonts often had higher stem/gap uniformity. There were strange situations like Helvetica Compressed where the flat sided font barely resembled Helvetica. When I see new compressed fonts, I don't see them going completely flat much anymore. Helvetica Neue retains curved sides but appears to have some degree of gap normalization applied to the heavier compressed weights. My question is: why? Obviously when working with interpolation, a sharp transition from curved to flat requires extra work. Do designers who use type prefer consistent round sides to going totally flat? Nobody cares?
To my eye, there's a certain threshold where flat sides and uniform gaps simply look better. I can't picture Univers Ultra-Compressed with curved sides, no matter how subtle.
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A given typeface has a certain character, a character that our users –hopefully– choose it for, that simply cannot survive beyond certain thresholds. For example a Baskerville with a very large x-height is no longer really a Baskerville (even though it might very well be a serviceable design). Sober naming of our work is part of its functionality.
If anything type designers have unfortunately started to care less about such consistency.
https://typographica.org/typeface-reviews/instant/#comment-74843
Presumably desiring a freedom that is essentially anti-user. Art.
https://issuu.com/linotype/docs/linotypeunivers/7
And I don't think readers are conscious of whether or not the sides are flat or round and whether or not it looks like it doesn't belong to the same typeface. I guess. I never noticed the flat sides on Univers Ultra-Compressed until I really thought about it.
I mean, it isn’t a requirement to avoid flat-sidedness in the condensed or extra-condensed if you are using interpolation, but you probably have a semi-condensed as well, and I suspect most of us do not want that to have semi-flattened sides from interpolation, and extra masters are a lot more work....
I'm sure that's the main reason they're not as common. It's not just a matter of flattening the sides. It's all new spacing, kerning and overshoots. Kind of a pain. The character relationships change too so that needs to be worked out while still retaining stylistic hooks to keep it plausibly in the same family. I did it with Galderglynn 1884 for a client job and I'm working on something similar for Coolvetica. Still I wonder if designers prefer it over round sized condensed fonts. Maybe it's better suited to retro themes.
As @Ray Larabie said, it’s mostly due to type designers saving time with interpolation.
The Filmotype "G" series is more or less that idea in many ways. (I'm the only one who has digitized any of them, back when I was part of the Filmotype project. That series is a particular favorite of mine.)
Depending on the design of the normal width, it can be tricky, though. For instance, Avant Garde Condensed looks almost like a different genre next to the severe geometry of the regular width. That's a case where I think a compressed, straight-sided style could be nice.
Years ago I did a little experiment (for my own amusement) to see what it might look like:
Some of the ligatures probably wouldn't work, though.
What makes Univers Compressed so appealing is precisely the strong design decision to verticalize the letters while retaining the spirit of the typeface.
And the spirit of a typeface is not merely a question of form. Thumbs down to Linotype for this. A solution like that works for Futura or Semplicità.
Avant Garde is an interesting case in point: being so strongly geometric the Condensed is indeed going against its design principle.