Adrian Frutiger 1928 present introduction He is One of the most prominent typeface designers ever And was born March 24 1928 in Interlaken Switzerland Known for The famous typefaces Univers and the self titled Frutiger Adrian Frutiger background As a child Frutiger experimented with a variety of self invented scripts and stylized handwriting in reaction to the formal cursive required at the time in Swiss schools quoted from Wikipedia com At the age of 16 he worked as a printer s apprentice near his home town and later moved to Zurich to study at the Zurich School of Ar ts and Crafts What would jumpstar t his career came in 1951 when he produced a school project about the history of Western lettering that caught the attention of Charles Peignot president of the type foundr y Deberny Peignot After graduating he was offered a position there and thus relocated to Paris aiding the foundr y in translating classic typefaces used with traditional printing methods to newer phototypesetting technologies In other words he supervised the adaptation of many D P classic faces to the computerized photo composition system Lumitype known as Photon in Nor th America Around the same time he started producing his own typefaces Then in 1960 he left D P to open his own Atlier ar tist studio just outside Paris Adrian Frutiger description Frutiger created quite an extensive collection of typeface families Most are listed here in chronological order The significant ones are covered in more detail on the following slide Apollo 1962 Icone 1980 President 1952 Serifa 1967 Breughel 1982 Ondine 1954 OCR B 1968 Versailles 1982 Meridien 1955 Iridium 1975 Avenir 1988 Egyptienne 1956 Frutiger 1975 Herculanum 1990 Univers 1957 Glypha 1979 Didot 1991 type images from Linotype com Adrian Frutiger description Egyptienne 1956 The first of three slab serif typefaces and also the first new face commissioned for photocomposition Univers 1957 Created as a response to Futura Frutiger disliked the form of Futura and thus created Univers as a competitor The font is based on the 1896 face Akzidenz Grotesk It was with Univers that Frutiger introduced the revolutionar y two digit numbering system indicating the face s weight and width Frutiger 1975 Resulted from a commission by the Charles de Gaulle International Airpor t in which the type needed to be legible from a great distance and at an angle for signage purposes Frutiger is a face influenced by Univers but with elements of humanism that gives it a more organic quality Avenir 1988 French for future Heavily draws from Futura but also retains a structure similar with neo grotesques This typeface has a full series of unified weights type images from Linotype com Adrian Frutiger discussion We care because During his time at D P he contributed some of the earliest typefaces for photocomposition But then in 1957 the pioneering two digit numbering system was introduced with Univers the same system which aids us today in differentiating between font weights and widths Not only that but creation of the 21 member Univers family was one of the first typefaces to give such a wide range of options to designers Frutiger s early background in craft largely channeled into the work he did leading to the design philosophy he emphasized with the balance of structure and form As a result his career has set the standard for typographic excellence Adrian Frutiger conclusion Even after such a long run in the game Adrian Frutiger continues shaping the world of typography Currently residing in Bern Switzerland at the age of 79 he has been keeping himself busy with collaborative work With the evergrowing impor tance of digitization Frutiger has revisited some of his old typefaces through collaboration to fit them for display on a screen Today we have seen reissues of Univers Frutiger and Avenir released through the Linotype foundry classic typefaces now with added dynamism The end Adrian Frutiger references http www typophile com wiki Adrian 20Frutiger http en wikipedia org wiki Adrian Frutiger http www ar tandculture com cgi bin WebObjects ACLive woa wa ar tist id 190 http web archive org web 19991104122610 webcom net nfhome frutiger htm http www answers com topic adrian frutiger http www linotype com 281 frutiger html Adrian Frutiger