Adrian Frutiger
The typeface
designer Adrian Frutiger, born in Unterseen, Canton of Bern, was influential
during the second half of the 20th and into the 21st
century. His most renowned typefaces are Frutiger and Univers.
He began his
interest in typography at a young age, inventing scripts and stylized
handwriting in reaction to the cursive required by Swiss schools at the time.
As a boy he was originally interested in sculpture, but was discouraged by his
teachers and father and pushed towards the direction of printing. Although he
then focused on print, the influence of sculpture was still apparent in his
work.
When he was sixteen
he apprenticed as a compositor for the printer Otto Schaerffli, in Interlaken.
He also studied under Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann in 1949 and 1951 in the
school of applied arts in Züric. There he primarily focused on calligraphy with
a nib and brush.
Later, Charles
Peignot, of the Paris foundry Deberny Et Peignot, recruited Frutiger after seeing
his illustrated essay Schrift / Écriture / Lettering: the development of
European letter types carved in wood. At Deberny Et Peignot Frutiger designed
the typefaces "Président", "Méridien", and "Ondine.”
He also designed Egyptienne in 1956 and, after Univers, it was the second new typeface
to be commissioned for photocomposition. He also created variations of Univers
for the Paris Metro and Charles de Gaulle International Airport wayfinding signage
in the 1970’s. His later typefaces include Versailles, Avenir, Vectora,
and Frutiger Next.
Frutiger’s career and typeface development
spans the hot metal, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting eras and he now lives
in Bremgarten-Bern.
