Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The man who knows his fonts, Adrian Frutiger

Born in Switzerland, a legend to the typeface world. The basic fonts are sometimes forgot about when thinking how were these created and designed? Adrian Frutiger is to thank for the basic fonts that are used very regularly throughout this day and age. “Breaking the rules” so to say is how real artist become legendary, Adrian Frutiger is one of these “rule-breakers” growing up in swiss schools with the typical cursive font He began experimenting new initiative fonts without the formal aspect. He advanced his name into the art and printing industry when writing a history paper on western lettering. Graduating from school he then worked in Paris aiding in translating classic typefaces. as well as creating his own style one of which included Univers in 1957. Univers was a response to the typeface Futura, with this typeface Frutiger introduces the revolutionary two-digit numbering system including the faces width and weight. Univers was the first typeface to use a numbering system and it also can be defined by a grid, which broke away from the normal, bold, and italic fonts of the past. The grid allows for more space and detail. The definition for the grid by Frutiger, “Frutiger likens it to a star; in the centre, there is a basic font face marked with number 55. Adjacent on the left and the right , are one unit higher or lower faces with always broader or narrower characters, but always with a ductus (stroke width) of the same thickness. On the other hand, there are adjacent faces in an upward or downward direction that are a tenth lower or higher with a ductus (stroke width) of equal thickness. Odd numbers mark the upright faces while even numbers mark the oblique faces. All characters are therefore logically connected and derive from one “prototype”.” (http://kaitlynmackey.blogspot.com/2008/09/adrian-frutiger.html)

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