Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger is a well known typeface designer of the twentieth century. His most well known typefaces are Univers and Frutiger. He introduced Univers in the mid-twentieth century. Bold weights did not come into play until the end of the nineteenth century, so Univers was unique in that was a tightly packaged type family with different weights of type. Today this is taken for granted in that we have come to expect bold and light counterparts along with a typeface. Univers was the first type family to use numbers to name the various weights associated with the typeface. Built around the Roman version, there were a total of twenty one variations when Frutiger released this typeface. Univers is unique in that it uses even strokes, as well as a large x-height. This greatly increases legibility when it is used in very large or very small forms. In 1997 Frutiger used the Linotype to expand this typeface. It then had sixty-three fonts, and the numbering system for these fonts required a third digit. 


The Univers grid was introduced in 1957 along with the typeface. The simplest explanation for this grid would be that it was used to show the different labels for the typefaces within Univers without actually writing out bold, heavy, light, and so on. The numbering system used by Frutiger went along with the Univers grid. Using numbers was a popular part of the Bauhaus movement. The first number refers to the character weight. The number 2 represents the thinnest weight, and goes to 9 as the thickest. The second number gives the character width. The number 3 is the widest with 9 being the most condensed. Odd numbers mean it is roma, while even numbers mean the typeface is italic. The following image shows an example of this grid system of labeling typefaces: