Adrian Frutiger and his fonts and how he influenced typography today - Research Paper Example

It was not appreciated by teachers who required him to write using formal handwriting fonts. However, his secondary school teachers and his father encouraged Adrians interest in fonts and wanted him to work in printing (Osterer and Stam 14-15). Contrary to peoples expectations, Adrian was interested not only in typing and designing new fonts. He was interested in sculpture when he was a little boy. Despite the life choice of typography as his profession, he did not lose the interest in art, sculpture and music.

Education also played an important role in Frutigers development as a designer. When he was 16, he trained to be a compositor. He was educated at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts where he attended courses of the best professors Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann (Osterer and Stam 16-17). The course lasted for two years from 1949 to 1951; calligraphy was one of his subjects (Macmillan 87). In 1952 Frutiger began to work for the foundry called Debenry and Peignot. Charles Peignot recruited him when he saw the brochuse called History of Letters created by Frutiger where he used his skills of engraving.

According to Weidemann, this brochure consisted of 9 wooden panels with engraved letters of everything starting from Greek capitals up to humanistic cursives and municules (Osterer and Stam 6). Frutiger created his first font in 1953; it was called Phoebus. His next creation called Ondine was released in 1954. One more font called Meridien was released in 1955. According to Weidemann, those fonts rendered the times when they were created and it added value to them. At the same time, all those fonts were just the beginning of Frutigers career.

Once, Frutiger was asked by Peignot to adapt Futura for Photon photosetting machine. According to Macmillan, Frutiger found Futura “too geometric” and wanted to create his family of fonts that would match in heights and weights (87). In this way, he found