In 1929 Chauncey Griffith at Mergenthaler commissioned W.A. Dwiggins to design a warmer and less mechanical Geometric Sanserif to compete with Futura. Dwiggins’ best efforts proved that human warmth had little to do with cool geometry; for twelve years, until the introduction of Spartan, Mergenthaler lost ground to Intertype’s licensed version of Futura.