Comments on: "He saw the type designer as a kind of public servant"

"He saw the type designer as a kind of public servant"

tepidmonkey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:27:25 -0800

It’s easy to talk about Adrian Frutiger in the past tense, since his most influential fonts – Univers, Egyptienne, and the eponymous Frutiger – are all at least thirty years old. But he is still alive, and in the summer of 2006, as he was presented with the Society for Typographic Aficionados’ annual Typography Award, type designer Mark Simonson gave a presentation on how Frutiger [pdf, 18 MB] affected, and continues to affect, him and all others who benefit from good typography.

By: Poolio

Poolio — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:36:20 -0800

Eponygraphical.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:37:45 -0800

For some reason I'd always assumed that Frutiger was some kind of 16th century printer from Geneva. Thanks for the post.

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:49:49 -0800

I'm loving the parody newspaper Mark showed as his first experience in typography. I had something like that too in high school, though I used lame Microsoft Publisher. His way would have been a lot cooler.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:23:15 -0800

Canadians (and interested non-Canadians) will know Frutiger as "that sexy font that the CBC uses for everything.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:23:36 -0800

" dammit

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:26:52 -0800

In an alternate universe somewhere in the eighth dimension, a Swiss typographer toils endless hours at perfecting Comic Sans.

By: elphTeq

elphTeq — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:34:54 -0800

It's always inspiring to learn of the birthplace of one man's passion - nice find, tepidmonkey!

By: travis vocino

travis vocino — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:51:01 -0800

This is a good post. I miss the days of Metafilter being this. Thanks for the post, tepidmonkey.

By: kandinski

kandinski — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:39:13 -0800

I concur that this post is great. I had just read Simonson's pdf from his presentation, and I liked his reflections on how Frutiger's method for optical scaling of fonts foreshadows the algorithms in use today. Type Sign Symbol is a bit pricey now, luckily my university's library rocks!

By: athenian

athenian — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:40:20 -0800

This is one of those posts that won't get many comments because it's good and interesting and non-controversial. So I'll add mine and say: great post, thanks. Also, God sucks.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:08:39 -0800

Any post that highlights great typography gets a "Favorite" from me. Just last night, my daughter's soccer team had their "senior recognition" night. One of the mothers had put together season-highlight booklets for the each girl and, while her layout was remarkably clean and restrained, her use throughout of some bizarre Papyrus/Mistral/Zapf Chancery hybrid bastard font made the ghost of Eric Gill weep.

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:47:05 -0800

Thanks for digging all of these up. I never thought I'd find typography that interesting, but as I scrolled through Mark Simonson's PDF, I was enthralled. In case anytone is interested, there is also a documnetary out right now about Univers' rival, Helvetica. When I saw posters for it before I couldn't imagine going to see it, but after this post it's a bit tempting, honestly.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 07:34:09 -0800

In case anytone is interested, there is also a documnetary out right now about Univers' rival, Helvetica. When I saw posters for it before I couldn't imagine going to see it, but after this post it's a bit tempting, honestly. Believe it or not, Entertainment Weekly loved it. Wonder if it's playing anywhere nearby...

By: luriete

luriete — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 00:13:50 -0800

I was sitting in one of the front rows for Mark's presentation. It was terrific and a little bit heartbreaking to know this tender, kind craftsman is/was not in good health and may not be with us for another generation of type designers to study under. I wish I could have been with the SoTA board when they gave the award to Mr. Frutiger. I've always wanted to meet him. Thanks for this post.