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Adrian Frutiger

I am a huge fan of Adrian Frutiger. Most of my favorite typefaces are his creations. Some are “undiscovered gems” that I have never seen used in anyone else's work. Others are ubiqutous; Frutiger and Univers.

Some of his lesser knowm work:

Vectora. Has a high x height, giving it a unique and refined look.


Meridien. I used Meridien once for a high class travel magazine I was designing. The typeface worked equally well for body copy, and the italics were interesting enough to work well as headlines.


I would have to say that Frutiger got me started on type design; I was working on a poster for a class that required that we choose a typefaces and only use elements from that typeface when designing. Initially, I struggled with the project, but eventually hit on the idea to use the U forms to frame the main piece. The center is a motion blur abstract also based on one of the characters. Although I was just starting as a designer, five years and an undergrad and masters degree later, I am still proud of the result. It probably has more to do with the quality of the typeface than any actual skill.


Adrian is now 79, but is still (!) designing. HowDesign has a nice article on Capitalis and Adrian Frutiger here, and you can purchase Capitalis from Linotype.

I also wrote a large portion of the wikipedia article on Adrian Frutiger.

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