GRA 437, Typographic Design Professor Claudia Strong S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Avenir was designed by Adrian and released by Linotype GmbH in 1988.

Avenir © Family Designed by Adrian Frutiger Linotype GmbH This specimen was designed MacOS Sierra and edited by John Doscas and Version 10.12.5 Adobe InDesign CC 2018 released in 2018. 5 Snapchat

7 The Typeface

11 Background of TABLE 13 Adrian Frutiger 17 Notable Usages CONTENTS 18 Purchasing “It’s a friendly, casual, and straightforward typeface that complements designs Snapchat and experiences rather on why they use the typeface than overwhelming them.”

5 6 light hashtag no filter

1 2 book hashtag no filter roman hashtag no filter

medium hashtag no filter

3 4 heavy hashtag no filter

black hashtag no filter 404 Error No ligatures found :( 5 6 weights and light oblique hashtag no filter

book oblique hashtag no filter 7 8 oblique hashtag no filter medium oblique hashtag no filter

heavy oblique hashtag no filter

9 0 black oblique numbers, ligatures, numbers, hashtag no filter 7 8 9

special characters/ punctuaction @ % ; ? : [ # ( Avenir supportsupto69different languages ÷ ¢ ® & « * $ “ { ‘ ¶ * / ! 10 Adrian Frutiger designed Avenir after having been inspired by sans- typefaces for years. He yearned to create a linear sans in the tradition of and that also reflected the advancements of the twentieth century.

Meaning “future” in French, the name Avenir is a hint that this typeface can attribute some of its inspiration to Futura. Unlike Futura, however, Avenir is not a purely geometric typeface. It has vertical strokes that are thicker than horizontal strokes, an “o” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These subtleties aid legibility and overall readability of the typeface as well as establishing a harmonious and sensible feeling. This makes Avenir appropriate for usage in any context, from body copy to headline text.

Avenir was originally released in 1988 with three weights, each with a roman and oblique version. It originally used a two-digit weight and width convention Frutiger had came up with as a naming system. The original release of Avenir had weights grouped very close together with the barely distinguishable differences. In his autobiography, Frutiger explained that this was a response to the effects of how people perceived color. He intended the slightly bolder designs for white-on-black text, so they would look the same to a viewer as black-on-white.

In 2004, Frutiger and the type director of Linotype GmbH, Akira Kobayashi, reworked Avenir and created Avenir Next to expand the range of weights and features. 11 T 12 Frutiger was a typeface designer born Frutiger married Paulette Flückiger in Unterseen, Bern, . His in 1952, who died in 1954 after influential career spanned over the the birth of their son Stéphane. He hot metal, and later remarried Simone Bickel, a digital eras. He had said theologian, in 1955. The couple had

it was his life’s work to design two daughters, Anne-Sylvie and Annik. Biography sans-serif typefaces and some of Both girls had mental health issues his most notable works are , and ultimately committed suicide as Frutiger, and Avenir. adolescents. Disappointed by the standard of mental health care at the In his youth, Frutiger received cursive time, Frutiger and his wife founded the penmanship lessons as a part of Fondation Adrian et Simone Frutiger his Swiss schooling. In contrast to to fund research and developments in the formal lessons, he began to support of mental health. experiment with invented scripts and stylized handwriting. Frutiger spent most of his professional career working in Paris and living His father and secondary school in France, returning to Switzerland teachers encouraged him to take later in life. on an apprenticeship as opposed to pursuing pure art, and after initially planning to train as a pastry chef, Frutiger secured an apprenticeship as a compositor at the Otto Schlaefli printing house in Interlaken. As an apprenticeship, Frutiger also took classes in woodcuts and drawing at the Gewerbeschule in Bern under Walter Zerbe, and later became a compositor at Gebr. Fretz in Zürich, Switzerland.

ADRIAN FRUTIGER In 1949 he transferred to the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, where 24 May 1928 – 10 September 2015 he studied under Walter Käch, Karl Schmid and Alfred Willimann until 1951. Here, Frutiger concentrated on calligraphy and began sketches for what would become Univers.

13 14 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. — Adrian Frutiger 15 “ 16 Avenir is also used on Apple Maps, as part of Amsterdam’s corporate identity, by Wake Forest University, on all Eurovision Song Contest materials, as a part of BBC Two’s identity, by Freeform as their corporated typeface, on Walt Disney Parks and Resorts websites, and as part of the Samsung Galaxy brand to list a few.

Available for purchase LINO TYPE $35 .COM

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