Adrian Frutiger and Univers

Adrian Frutiger is responsible for creating the Univers typeface. He has influenced the direction of digital photography from the second half of the 20^th century into the 21^st.

At sixteen he was an apprentice for four years as a compositor under Otto Schaerffli in Interlaken. He also studied under Walter Kach and Alfred Willimann in the school of applied arts in Zurich. He primarily concentrated on calligraphy. With the quality of his work in his illustrated essay of letter types carved in wood, Frutiger was recruited by Charles Peignot, of the Paris foundry Deberny Et Peignot. Futiger’s first commercial typeface was President. But shortly after he released Ondine, Meridien, Egyptienne and Univers.

Universe itself is one of a group of neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces which figure prominently in the Swiss Style of graphic design. Currently Univers consists fo 44 faces with 16 uniquely numbered weight, width, position combinations. Futiger reworked the whole Univers family in cooperation with Linotype creating the Linotype Univers. In 2010 Linotype released Cryllic versions of the Univers family. Universe was greatly popular in the 1960’s and 70’s and was adopted by many corporations. Even today Univers is used by the CNN international, CNN Domestic, Spirit Airlines, ESPN, even the World Book Encyclopedia used Univers as their secondary font. Univers has been adopted by many over the years and appreciated by many. In the end we can’t forget to thank Adrian Frutiger, for the timeless, legendary, font he created for the communication of the world.