Typographic Heavyweights: Adrian Frutiger
This essay will discuss a designer called Adrian Frutiger who was born on 24th of May 1928 in Switzerland. When he was young he experimented with script and decorative typestyles in a negative reaction to the formal typefaces used in the schools at that time. After his high school he started working as a compositor, then he continued to get trained at the Zurich school of Arts and Crafts from 1949 to 1951. In 1952 got an invitation from Charles Peignot to administer the drawing office at Deberny & Peignot in Paris which was the foundry who produced metal type and fonts for Lumitype/Photon phototype setting systems.
He is a mainly a typeface designer and his work continues to influence the designers and the typographic work in 21st century. Throughout his career when he designed his first official typeface in 1954 which was called Ondine, he designed about 31 different typefaces and his last official typeface was released in 2009 which was called Neue Frutiger. He designed a number of different typefaces but the most known typefaces he designed were Univers and Frutiger. He designed Univers in 1954 and currently includes over 40 typefaces, Universe was his most significant contribution in France which he created for filmsetting and it was also available in different weights and heights. Similar to the typeface Gill Sans which was designed by Eric Gill in 1926, Univers did more to help He produced his first typeface by cutting and pasting black paper shapes, and created a black and white contrast which became an important part of his professional life. He designed a lot more typefaces in the 1950s but the one which gave him an international reputation was Univers which he created for metal and film composition in 1957.
The Frutiger typeface which was commissioned in 1968 was mainly a typeface for Air France which wasn’t just printed information but also he created signs and letterings for the Charles de Gaulle airpot, Frutiget typeface was designed in-between Gill and Univers, he also designed another version of this typeface which was called Frutiger linotype. He produced his first typeface by cutting and pasting black paper shapes, and created a black and white contrast which became an important part of his professional life. He designed a lot more typefaces in the 1950s but the one which gave him an international reputation was Univers.
A lot of other typefaces are influenced by Frutiger’s typefaces Univers and Frutiger. The typeface which looks really similar to Univers is Halvetica, which was developed in 1957 by Max Meidinger in Switzerland. Halvetica is also one of the most used typefaces in present times along with Univers.
He also designed a number of posting stamps for Swiss post and most of them were produces by using the typeface Halvetica.
At the same period of time when Frutiger started designing his own typefaces from which some of them became a major part of designing world and earned him the status as one of the greatest typeface designers, throughout his career he also managed to produce a number of books, such as: Type, Sign, Symbol (1980)
Signs and Symbols: Their Design and Meaning (1989)
The International Type Book (1990)
Geometry of Feelings (1998)
The Development of Western Type Carved in Wood Plates (1999)
Forms and Counterforms (1999)
Life Cycle (1999)
The Univers (1999)
Symbols and Signs: Explorations (1999)