Type – Adapted to Everyday Life
Frutiger notes that many designers like to play around on their screens but essentially do not invent anything new. “Typefaces are reconstructed but new ones are not developed. Yet among these young people there are highly talented ones who truly understand the flow of type – while others just pretend they know what it is.”
One cannot help but ask the question if such masters as Adrian Frutiger – one can certainly also name Hermann Zapf in the same breath – are the last of their “guild”: designers who have created typefaces which will continue to excite for generations to come. “I refuse to believe it,” Frutiger dismisses. “Our basis was and still is text type – especially for print media. But there will always be people who are able to approach this basis from a new angle and create something truly new.” The top talents, as he calls them, with a special focus.
Frutiger has found his personal calling in sans serif fonts – stimulated by his teachers Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. “It suited my character to make sans serif typefaces my mission. On the one hand, it had to do with the jobs I was being given, but it also had a lot to with the techniques I had learned.”
After all, he had not only developed typefaces for humans but also for machines. “Actually, computers and computer controlled scanning devices function in a similar way to the human eye.” The OCR typefaces developed by Frutiger in the 1970s are still used to this day for credit cards and money transfer media in banking traffic – there is no typeface which is more legible for computers. “They are more than 100 percent secure.”
In the same way he has developed new typefaces for new purposes, Frutiger is convinced that the changing media industry will confront designers with completely unforeseen challenges which demand innovative solutions. “Many things are developed slowly and continuously. Then suddenly a turning point comes. So like scientists who discover new methods, typographers will also begin to venture into areas which have not previously been explored.”
Frutiger mentions no examples, but everyone knows that there are plenty of areas in which typography can be improved with new typefaces and new ideas. The Internet is only one example where, still today, the potential of typography is highly neglected. But also in other areas, like in television, there is a lot more which could be done. The point is obvious: all new media require new tools.
Search with the keyword for ‘Frutiger’ to find all fonts in the Linotype Library designed by Adrian Frutiger.
One cannot help but ask the question if such masters as Adrian Frutiger – one can certainly also name Hermann Zapf in the same breath – are the last of their “guild”: designers who have created typefaces which will continue to excite for generations to come. “I refuse to believe it,” Frutiger dismisses. “Our basis was and still is text type – especially for print media. But there will always be people who are able to approach this basis from a new angle and create something truly new.” The top talents, as he calls them, with a special focus.
Frutiger has found his personal calling in sans serif fonts – stimulated by his teachers Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. “It suited my character to make sans serif typefaces my mission. On the one hand, it had to do with the jobs I was being given, but it also had a lot to with the techniques I had learned.”
After all, he had not only developed typefaces for humans but also for machines. “Actually, computers and computer controlled scanning devices function in a similar way to the human eye.” The OCR typefaces developed by Frutiger in the 1970s are still used to this day for credit cards and money transfer media in banking traffic – there is no typeface which is more legible for computers. “They are more than 100 percent secure.”
In the same way he has developed new typefaces for new purposes, Frutiger is convinced that the changing media industry will confront designers with completely unforeseen challenges which demand innovative solutions. “Many things are developed slowly and continuously. Then suddenly a turning point comes. So like scientists who discover new methods, typographers will also begin to venture into areas which have not previously been explored.”
Frutiger mentions no examples, but everyone knows that there are plenty of areas in which typography can be improved with new typefaces and new ideas. The Internet is only one example where, still today, the potential of typography is highly neglected. But also in other areas, like in television, there is a lot more which could be done. The point is obvious: all new media require new tools.
Search with the keyword for ‘Frutiger’ to find all fonts in the Linotype Library designed by Adrian Frutiger.
Linotype
