Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger is a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the world of digital type in the second half of the twentieth century. He created many type faces, including eponymous Frutiger, Univers, Avenir, and a personal favorite of mine, Eygptienne.

Frutiger studied in Zürich, focusing on calligraphy before being hired by Charles Piegnot, of Deberny et Peignot, for his wood engraved illustrations. During his time there, Frutiger created many typefaces we know and love today. In the 1970s, he created the Paris Metro sign and way-finding signage for the Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris. When he created Univers, he created a grid that is a chart that documents the different variations of the font based on stroke weight and kerning, creating organization for the font." Univers also has many faces, 44, many with individual weight and width that makes it very unique. Frutiger said, “the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader. In the course of my professional life I have acquired knowledge and manual skill. To pass on what I had learned and achieved to the next generation became a necessity.” 

Adrian Frutiger has passed on that knowledge, through his elegant and beautiful typefaces that we cherish and use today, many years after their original creation.


http://melindadraut.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/adrian-frutiger-and-the-univers-grid/