Adrian Frutiger is a Swiss born typeface designer who
developed two popular fonts: Univers and Frutiger. During his time as a
typeface designer, he worked to digitalize typefaces and to move away from the
traditional type settings. As he developed his font, he became involved with
the transition from traditional to phototypesetting’s and began to create a
type family.
Like Jan Tschichold, Adrian Frutiger started pursuing his
career rather young. Even though he had a love for sculpture, he was encouraged
into print by his father and his teachers. At the age of 16, he was working as
a compositor with a printer. Following this position, he went to school to
further his education of type. He returned to school after working again as a
compositor, and studied typefaces.
Through out his career in type, Frutiger produced several
typefaces still put into practice today. He designed the wayfinding signage for
the Paris Metro as well as for the Charles de Gaulle airport, in which he
designed a new typeface. As type changed, metal, phototypesetting, and digital
typesetting, Frutiger followed. He produced type for the new technology, as
well as reimagined his former typefaces to work on a screen.
Univers, arguably Frutigers most successful font, paved the way
for type families. Univers has unifying qualities that tie together each
fashion of the typeface, whether italic, bold, thick, or thin. The consistency of
the type family was revolutionary, and stood out in print among others. The
Univers type family is broken down and organized with numbers to show weight
and width. The unifying elements, and consistency between forms, made Univers
unique.
The Univers grid is a table made by Frutiger to display all
of the faces of the type family. It neatly organizes and demonstrates the
relation, and difference, of each numbered face. The grid creates a gradient of
type, starting with bold and ending with the narrowest and thinnest font.
