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Adrian , 1928–2015 With , he created one of the first Norbert Preining super-families, one de- The textural quality of a is like the sign with, initially, 21 timbre of a musical instrument, and the indi- sets (or styles). Origi- vidual letters are like musical notes. A text nally targeting the Lu- composed in one typeface can look very dif- mitype phototypeset- ferent when composed in another because a ting machine where complex visual sensation emerges from the manufacturing costs repetition and interaction of nearly subliminal were much lower per set, its enthusiastic acceptance design features of the type. Frutiger’s explo- led to publish Univers also in lead type. ration of manifold type forms delights the eye Besides widespread adoption in advertising and with textural variations and deepens the under- industry, such as by Apple, , and Gen- standing with abstract forms that express their eral Electric, Univers was used for the 1972 Olympic distinctive meanings. (Charles Bigelow [1]) Games in , as well as at the Paris Orly Air- port [4]. For Univers he also created a numerical On September 10, 2015, passed away coding system to overcome international discrepan- after a long and productive life. He has left us a rich cies in naming. Despite the renown of this famous heritage of he designed, as well as important creation, which continues to thrive throughout all works on communication and visual language. changes in the typographic world, Frutiger always Life remained modest about his achievements: Born in Unterseen, a small I don’t want to claim the glory. It was simply village in the mountain- the time, the surroundings, the country, the ous regions of the Berner invention, the postwar period and my studies Oberland, in 1928, Adrian during the war. Everything led towards it. Frutiger moved to Inter- It could not have happened any other way. laken and later to Zürich to (Adrian Frutiger [2]) learn the craft of the type- Based on an original design from 1970 for the setter. In 1949 he enrolled Charles de Gaulle Airport, which was named after in the School of Applied Arts, from which he grad- the suburb of the airport’s location, Roissy, Frutiger uated in 1951 with distinction. His final project, a released an improved design for print, giving it his woodcut series about the development of Western own name, Frutiger. This became another inter- type, inspired the interest of Charles Peignot of the nationally famous widespread typeface, due to its Paris foundry Deberny & Peignot, where Frutiger mixture of ideas from Univers with organic influences worked until 1961, when he established a freelance from , creating an extremely legible of studio. In 1972, his first design for Linotype was re- generally humanist design. leased, Iridium, followed by many others for Linotype Frutiger is basically the best signage type in over the next 35 years [7]. the world because there’s not too much ‘noise’ However successful his professional life, his pri- in it, so it doesn’t call attention to itself. It vate life was struck by a series of calamities: His makes itself invisible, but physically it’s actu- first wife Paulette died after giving birth to their ally incredibly legible. ( [6]) son, and both children with his second wife Simone experienced mental health problems and committed The design has seen many re-interpretations, suicide, leading the Frutigers to establish the Fonda- including Frutiger Next and Frutiger Neue, as well tion Adrian et Simone Frutiger to improve mental as the serifed versions such as Frutiger . health support. Other designs to be especially noted are , After having spent most of his life in France, a more humanist version of the geometric sans-serif particularly Paris, he returned to and types faces of the early 20th century, and OCR-B, passed away in Bremgarten near Bern at age 87. which in 1973 became the world standard for optical character recognition. Fonts While Frutiger’s most famous are sans- Adrian Frutiger designed about 40 type families, in- serif, he also designed excellent serif typefaces, such cluding masterpieces Frutiger and Univers, and no- as , Centennial, Méridien (recently re- tably also OCR-B for optical character recognition. vised and re-released as Frutiger Serif), and Iridium. TUGboat, Volume 36 (2015), No. 3 183

In all his designs, he focused on readability and fonts He also explores such signs as a modern lan- as tools. guage, and their importance for visual communica- The whole point with type is for you not to be tion and identity building, along with the develop- aware it is there. If you remember the shape ment of the Roman alphabet. He concludes this book of a spoon with which you just ate some soup, with a very wise statement: then the spoon had a poor shape. Spoons and Alphabetic signs alone have long been insuf- letters are tools. The first we need to ingest ficient to record and convey human thoughts bodily nourishment from a bowl, the latter and statements. Orientation and communi- we need to ingest mental nourishment from a cation would be impossible today without dia- piece of paper. (Adrian Frutiger [5]) grams, signs and signals. Written or printed expression is necessarily complemented by pic- Avenir torial communication. (Adrian Frutiger [3]) With the loss of Adrian Frutiger, one of the Centennial great minds of is gone. He and [8] together formed the ground of font design and typography like no others in the twentieth cen- tury. Frutiger’s knowledge and insights into the craft Egypt will be guidance for many generations of typeface designers to come: Frutiger On my career path I learned to understand that beauty and readability — and up to a cer- Frutiger Serif tain point, banality — are close bedfellows: the best typeface is the one that impinges least OCR-B on the reader’s consciousness, becoming the sole tool that communicates the meaning of the writer to the understanding of the reader. Univers (Adrian Frutiger [7]) Visual communication — signs and symbols References Besides being a prolific font designer, Frutiger was [1] Charles Bigelow. Philosophies of Form interested in the visual language of symbols, their in Seriffed Typefaces of Adrian Frutiger. development and interaction. His book Der Men- http://goo.gl/1aekRD. sch und seine Zeichen (Signs and Symbols) [3] is [2] Eye Magazine. Reputations: Adrian Frutiger. a profound study on the development, history, and http://goo.gl/BwjAow. use of all kinds of symbols. In this book, translated [3] Adrian Frutiger. Signs and Symbols: Their Design into many languages, Frutiger explores the depth and Meaning. Watson-Guptill Publications, 1998. and breadth of symbols, but the most important [4] Linotype. Nachruf auf Adrian Frutiger. aspect for him, easily seen from the German title, http://goo.gl/J4CQ3X. is the human (“Der Mensch”). Symbols are created, [5] Linotype. Typography as the highest form of visual communication — a talk with Adrian Frutiger. changed, and used by and for humans. His studies http://goo.gl/4AKvDv. exhibit connections between various cultures when [6] New York Times. Adrian Frutiger dies at 87. it comes to sign usage and design. http://goo.gl/5IdcBp. [7] Swiss Foundation Type and Typography, editors. Adrian Frutiger Typefaces: The Complete Works. Birkhäuser Verlag, 2008. [8] TUGboat, 36(2):92–99, 2015. Remembrances of Hermann Zapf. http://tug.org/TUGboat/ Contents/contents36-2.html.

 Norbert Preining Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Nomi, Ishikawa, Japan norbert (at) preining dot info http://www.preining.info