Adrian Frutiger – Traces

At school we were taught joined-up writing in a standard style, introduced by an educationist named Hulliger and adopted for all German-Swiss schools and, in my view, a bad starting-point for at least two generations of youngsters. Hulliger was of German origin. His script was pointed and sloped, forcing the pupil’s hand into a constantly flowing movement from lower left to upper right.

When I was fifteen, something in me must have led me to rebel against this pointed, tedious up-and-down style. As I will tell later, I had come to heroworship the young person’s writer Ernst Eberhart. The letter which he wrote to invite me to his house was for me something to be guarded like a holy relic. I wanted to be able to write in his hand. So I trimmed my pen down to a broad nib and wrote my first specimens. The new handwriting was upright, its letters open and round. I also tried to imitate Eberhart’s beautiful, spirited capital letters.

"I learned to write with pen and ink in the stiff ‘Hulliger Script’ from the thirties. I found its zig-zag movements unsympathetic and looked for a rounded, flowing form."