Fonts of Adrian Frutiger in the Linotype Library

Frutiger™ Capitalis
At first glance, Frutiger Capitalis Regular and Outline may seem related to the roman type Capitalis Monumentalis, but upon closer examination, the fonts reveal a vitality unknown to the characters the Romans etched in stone. Frutiger confesses that creating Capitalis was "a liberation." After working on so many sophisticated and meticulously designed typefaces, Capitalis was a breath of fresh air.
Stylistically, Frutiger Capitalis Outline forms a bridge to Frutiger Capitalis Signs – a whole universe of its own. Frutiger Capitalis Signs is a personal cosmos of symbols, many are immediately "legible", others leave room for interpretation. Some of the symbols are the product of Frutiger"s imagination, such as his "Life Signs" – soft, hand drawn figures whose lines have no apparent beginning or end, creating both interior and exterior spaces, new forms emerging at each glance. These contoured drawings have accompanied Frutiger throughout his professional life – a fantasy garden which has provided an important balance to his many years of disciplined typeface design. Yet he does not consider himself an artist. Frutiger says he simply "wants to tell stories, to draw thin lines, create contours of signs: that is my style."


Frutiger™ Stones
Frutiger Stones is for Adrian Frutiger the example of his formal artistic sensibility par excellence. Searching for the fundamental elements in nature, he has discovered the pebble, rounded and polished over innumerable years by gently flowing water.
And out of this, he has created his complete system, a ruralistic typeface of letters and symbols. It depicts animals and plants, as well as astrological and mythical signs. Because of its unique aura, Frutiger Stones is particularly well-suited to different purposes – in headlines and prominent pictograms, as symbol faces, illustrations, and more.


Frutiger™ Symbols
Frutiger Symbols is a symbol font of plants, animals and stars as well as religious and mythological symbols. Together with Frutiger Stones this typeface builds a complete design system, which offers endless possibilities. It can be used for illustrations or a symbol type with its distinctive pictograms. Frutiger Symbols is available in the weights regular, positive and negative.


Glypha™
Glypha was designed in 1977 and is the condensed extension of Serifa, Frutiger´s slab serif (or Egyptian) design from the 1960s. Like Serifa, Glypha is modeled from the basic forms of Univers, with the addition of slab serifs. Glypha has a taller x-height than Serifa, and the proportions of its curves are based on the oval. This family is wonderfully legible and practical, and the fine differentiation between the ten weights offers the graphic designer a variety of application possibilities. Glypha is a particularly good choice for catalogues, advertisements, and magazine work.


Herculanum™
Like Pompeijana and Rusticana™, Herculanum is one of Adrian Frutiger’s contributions to the Type Before Gutenberg series. Linotype invited accomplished designers and calligraphers to create new interpretations of scripts from the centuries before Gutenberg’s revolutionary invention. Herculanum is named after Herculaneum, one of the ancient Roman cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The typeface is based on cursive writing found on papyri from this period, and is composed of all-capital letters. Narrow caps are mixed with wide ones, and the lively strokes create an expressive line flow. Alternate caps include A, K, M, N, R, U, V, X, Y and Z. Herculanum has an aura of informal grace and dignity; it works well as an individualistic headline font.


Icone™
When Adrian Frutiger developed this font in 1980, he was influenced by the ancient scripts often found on stones in Normandy or Ireland. This is by no means a direct interpretation of such scripts, however. Icone has asymmetric flaring serifs, a distinct lack of straight lines, and the comfortable legibility that is characteristic of Frutiger types. Icone reflects the successful attempt to combine historical sensibilities with modern Zeitgeist; it has its roots in ancient models but was created using computers. The result is an extensive family with harmonious proportions that can meet the demands of digital typesetting and reproduction techniques.


Iridium™
Iridium is in the "modern" style like Bodoni or Didot, in that it has the sparkle created by a high thick/thin contrast and a symmetrical distribution of weight. But the sometimes harsh and rigid texture of the modern style is tempered by Frutiger’s graceful interpretation. Iridium itself is a very hard, brittle and strong metal; yet the Latin and Greek roots of the word mean rainbow, or iridescence. And indeed, this font is infused with a more lustrous and complex spirit than the average rather stark modern typeface - note the stems that gently taper from waist to serif, the nicely curved ovals of the round characters, and the slight bracketing of the serifs. Iridium was originally designed for phototypesetting, and Frutiger himself cut the final master photo-mask films by hand. This digital version has all the craftsmanship of that original and includes the roman, a true italic, and the bold weight. Iridium works particularly well for book and magazine text and headlines.


Meridien™
Meridien was developed in the mid-1950s, and released by the French foundry Deberny & Peignot in 1957. After studying a typeface from the sixteenth century, Adrian Frutiger was inspired to create an alphabet without any completely straight strokes, and he hoped the reader of a text set in this typeface would feel as though wandering through a forest. The designer of more than 100 typefaces, Frutiger considers Meridien to be his best. With its slightly flared stems and triangular shaped serifs, Meridien is at once sharp, graceful, arresting, and sensuous; much like a forest. Use the roman when you want to create a distinctive graphic expression in book text. For posters and websites, the italic or the bold weights or even the roman set in all caps will give an impression of quiet dignity.