Adrian Frutiger has spent decades working very closely with Linotype. In the many years of this fruitful collaboration, we’ve accumulated a number of photographs of Adrian Frutiger. These images show glimpses of the different periods and highlights of his life so far, including pictures of him working in his studio, moments of him along with his typefaces, and even more recent shots of him working together with Akira Kobayashi.
We hope that you enjoy browsing through these images.
Frutiger® – the sans serif classic.
Get the original from Linotype as single fonts, in a Value Pack, or on CD.
About Frutiger
Famous type designer Adrian Frutiger created a masterpiece with this typeface. Faced with the challenge of designing an exceptionally legible type for the signs of the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, he developed the now legendary Frutiger in 1968. The original Linotype typeface has since been expanded to include 14 weights and is of course not just
[...]Über die Lesbarkeit
Unter dem Einfluss der verschieden Druckverfahren hat die lateinische Textschrift subtile Formveränderungen erfahren. Grundsätzlich neue Formen sind jedoch keine entstanden. Als Demonstration dafür sind acht a in den meistgelesenen Schriftstilen mit einem Drehraster versehen und übereinander kopiert. Das Resultat zeigt eine erstaunliche Übereinstimmung.
Biography of Akira Kobayashi:
Studied at the Musashino Art University in Tokyo, and later followed this up with a calligraphy course at the London College of Printing. Freelance type designer since 1997.
Professional experience
April 1983–March 1989
Sha-ken Co. Ltd, Japan Typeface design department
December 1990–June 1993
Jiyu-kobo Ltd, Japan
September 1993–March 1997
TypeBank Co. Ltd, Japan
March 1997–April 2001
Freelance type designer
April 1998–April
[...]Portrait
We can read because we perceive elements and forms which are familiar to us. So in order to even recognize words, we must first decipher the elements which make up the shapes of the letters – a process which involves the interplay of myriad aspects. To a certain degree, many of us are aware of these aspects. Yet Adrian Frutiger knows about such shifting dynamics in perception in a way no other person can, as he has been instrumental in researching the subject and over several decades
[...]Adrian Frutiger’s newest typeface: Frutiger Serif
It isn’t every day that one of the world’s most popular sans serif typeface families receives a new serif companion. When this happens, it is certainly reason to celebrate. Linotype is proud to release Frutiger® Serif, a new typeface family from Adrian Frutiger and Akira Kobayashi.
The idea for Frutiger Serif began as an updated and expanded version of Frutiger’s classic serif typeface Meridien®, which was originally
[...]
Frutiger® Serif is a re-envisioning of Meridien,a typeface first released by Deberny & Peignot during the 1950s. Working closely with Adrian Frutiger, Linotype's Type Director Akira Kobayashi expanded the original metal type version of Meridien into a new digital family of 20 variants. Renamed Frutiger Serif, this up-to-date Meridien has new weights, widths, and styles that correspond better with several other of Frutiger's designs. Just as Meridien has always been a fine choice for text settings, Frutiger Serif works brilliantly for large amounts of text & also at small point sizes. With its many weights and styles, this family is strong enough for most typographic projects. However, its added versatility is revealed when used in combination with other fonts. Frutiger Serif works well with the original Frutiger, Frutiger Next, and Univers - just to name a few. Paring these serif and sans serif families together is perfect for creating complex hierarchies and clear information design. Working with complicated typographic systems - involving elements such as headlines, captions, pull quotes, multilingual text, etc - is made easy by selecting Frutiger Serif and another of Frutiger's sans serif families. The designer needs simply to mix and match different weights and styles for the various textual elements to create smart and innovative layouts.
