Frutiger

Frutiger

Category	Humanist Sans-serif
Designer(s)	Adrian Frutiger
Foundry	Linotype
Date released	1975
Variations	Frutiger Next

Frutiger (pronounced with a hard g) is a series of typefaces named after its designer, Adrian Frutiger. Initially available as a sans serif, it was later expanded to include ornamental and serif typefaces.

Distinctive characteristics

Characteristics of this typeface are:

Lowercase: square dot over the letter i; double-storey a.

Uppercase: the tail of the capital Q is centered under the figure; the uppercase J has a slight hook; and there are two versions of the uppercase R, one with a straight tail and one with a curved tail.

Figures: monospaced numbers; diagonal serif on the 1; closed 4.

History

Frutiger is a sans-serif typeface by the Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger. It was commissioned in 1968 by the newly built Charles de Gaulle International Airport at Roissy, France, which needed a new directional sign system. Instead of using one of his previously designed typefaces like Univers, Frutiger chose to design a new one. The new typeface, originally called Roissy, was completed in 1975 and installed at the airport the same year.

Frutiger's goal was to create a sans-serif typeface with the rationality and cleanliness of Univers but the organic and proportional aspects of Gill Sans. The result is that Frutiger is a distinctive and legible typeface. The letter properties were suited to the needs of Charles de Gaulle: a modern appearance and legibility at various angles, sizes, and distances. Ascenders and descenders are very prominent, and apertures are wide to easily distinguish letters from one another.

The Frutiger family was released publicly in 1976 by the Stempel type foundry in conjunction with Linotype. Frutiger's simple and legible yet warm and casual character has made it popular today in advertising and small print. Some major uses of Frutiger are in the corporate identity of Raytheon, O₂, the British Royal Navy and British Army, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Conservative Party of Canada, the Banco Bradesco in Brazil, and the Finnish Defence Forces, and on road signs in Switzerland. The typeface has also been used across the public transport network in Oslo, Norway, since the 1980s. In 2008 it was the fifth best-selling typeface of the Linotype foundry.^[1]

Frutiger is also used globally by DHL and by DPWN Deutsche Post in Germany.

Frutiger is also used by the Indian company MNC Larsen & Toubro.

Frutiger was also produced by Bitstream under the name Humanist 777.

Frutiger Linotype

This is a version of the original Frutiger font family licensed to Microsoft. This family consists of Frutiger 55, 56, 65, and 66. It does not include OpenType features or kerning, but it adds support to Latin Extended-B and Greek characters, with Frutiger 55 supporting extra IPA characters and spacing modifier letters. Unlike most Frutiger variants, Frutiger Linotype features old-style figures as the default numeral style.

Frutiger Linotype can be found in Microsoft products featuring Microsoft Reader and in the standalone Microsoft Reader package.

ASTRA-Frutiger

This is a variant of Frutiger used by Swiss authorities as the new font for traffic signs, replacing VSS in 2003.^[2] It is based on Frutiger 57 Condensed, but with widening ascenders and descenders, which are intended to give the eye a better hold than the earlier version did.

A family of two fonts were made, called ASTRA-Frutiger-Standard/standard and ASTRA-Frutiger-Autobahn/autoroute.

Frutiger Next

The Frutiger family was updated in 1997 for signage at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The new version, Frutiger Next, changed a number of details and added a true italic style in place of the oblique roman of the original.

Frutiger Next was commercially available in 2000 under Linotype. The family include six font weights, with a bonus Ultra Light weight in the OpenType version. It supports ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, and Latin Extended characters. OpenType features include small caps, old style figures, superscript and subscript, ordinals, proportional lining figures, and case forms. Font names are no longer numbered with the Frutiger system. Frutiger Black was renamed to Frutiger Next Heavy, and Frutiger Ultra Black was changed to Frutiger Next Black. Condensed fonts no longer include italic variants. In addition to italic type, characters such as the cent sign (¢), the copyright symbol (©), the ampersand (&), the at sign (@), the sharp S (ß), Omega (Ω), and the integral symbol (∫) were redesigned. Cyrillic letters had not been produced until Frutiger Next W1G.

Frutiger Next Greek (2005)

This is a variant of Frutiger Next designed with Eva Masoura for Linotype, originally published as a TDC2 2006 entry.

Frutiger Next W1G (2009)

This is an expanded version of Frutiger Next W1G. It added Greek (from Frutiger Next Greek) and Cyrillic character sets, but advertised OpenType features were reduced to superscript and subscript. Only an OpenType version has been produced.

Frutiger Stones (1998)

This is a family of casual fonts inspired by natural elements. Using polished pebbles as the boundary, the family consists of regular, positive, and negative fonts. Frutiger Stones Positive is Regular without the stone outline, while Negative is a reverse fill of the Regular.

Frutiger Symbols (1998)

This is a family of symbol fonts. The fonts contain plants, animals, and stars, as well as religious and mythological symbols. The naming convention follows Frutiger Stones.

Frutiger Capitalis (2005)

This is a family of casual fonts that consists of regular, outline, and signs fonts. Frutiger Capitalis Outline is the outline version of Frutiger Capitalis Regular. Frutiger Capitalis contains ornamental glyphs of religions, hand signs, and astrological signs.

Frutiger Arabic (2007)

This is a font family designed by Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine as a companion to Frutiger in consultation with Adrian Frutiger. It is based on the Kufi style but incorporates aspects of Ruqaa and Naskh in the letter form designs, resulting in what Linotype called "humanist Kufi". The fonts consist of Basic Latin and ISO-Latin characters derived from the original Frutiger family, with Arabic characters supporting presentation forms A and B. Four font weights were produced.

Frutiger Serif (2008)

This is a serif font family designed by Adrian Frutiger and Akira Kobayashi. It is a re-envisioning of the metal type version of Meridien, a typeface first released by Deberny & Peignot during the 1950s.

The family consists of roman and italic fonts in five weights and two widths each.

Neue Frutiger (2009)

This is an expanded version of the original Frutiger family designed by Adrian Frutiger and Akira Kobayashi. Unlike the original family, the Frutiger numbering scheme is not used.

Initial release of the family has 20 fonts in 10 weights and 1 width, with a complimentary oblique. It supports ISO Adobe, Adobe CE, and Latin Extended characters. OpenType features include subscript and superscript.

Neue Frutiger Condensed (2010)

On April 7, 2010, Monotype Imaging Holdings announced condensed versions of the Neue Frutiger fonts. Designed by Akira Kobayashi, the expansion of the family includes 20 fonts in the same weight and style combination as the original release, in OpenType Pro font format.^[3][4]

Neue Frutiger W1G (2011)

This version supports Greek and Cyrillic characters.

The family includes 40 fonts in 10 weights and 2 widths, with a complimentary oblique.

Neue Frutiger 1450 (2013)

It is a version of Neue Frutiger compliant with the German standard DIN 1450, designed by Akira Kobayashi.^[5][6]

The family includes 8 fonts in 4 weights (book, regular, medium, bold) and 1 width, with a complimentary oblique.

OpenType features include denominator/numerator, fractions, ligatures, localized forms, ordinals, proportional figures, subscript/superscript, scientific inferiors, stylistic alternates (2 sets), ornaments, kerning.

Similar types

Adobe's Myriad and Microsoft's Segoe UI are two prominent typefaces whose similarities to Frutiger have aroused controversy. However, in an interview, Adrian Frutiger commended the work of Myriad's designer, Robert Slimbach: "except the unnecessary doubt concerning Myriad, his work is also very good."^[7]

Awards

Frutiger Next won the buvka:raz! competition in the Latin category.^[8]

Frutiger Next Greek won the TDC2 2006 award under the Type System / Superfamily category.^[9]

Use in branding

The Frutiger font is used as an official typeface by many institutions around the world. A number of these are listed here.

Universities and colleges

• Central Washington University uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Hoefler Text.
• Claremont McKenna College uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Janson.
• Cornell University uses Frutiger as its secondary typeface, along with Palatino.^[10]
• Emmanuel College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with its sister Dartmouth and Lowell (but not Boston), use Frutiger as their official typeface, along with Sabon.
• The London school of Economics service uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[11]
• The NYSED uses Frutiger heavily on its state mathematics tests.
• Ohio University uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Galliard.^[12]
• Temple University uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Goudy (and Garamond for body text correspondence).
• The University of Iceland uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[13]
• The University of Lausanne uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[14]
• The University of Miami uses Frutiger (Linotype) as its primary sans-serif typeface.^[15]
• The University of Southern California uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Caslon 540.^[16]
• Xavier University uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Bembo.
• Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad uses Frutiger as its official typeface, along with Bembo.
• California Institute of Technology uses Frutiger as one of its two "primary fonts," along with Adobe Garamond.^[17]

Companies and organizations

• Alcatel-Lucent used Frutiger in its logo.^[18]
• Amtrak uses Frutiger for signage and as a display type in printed documents, as well as for numbering on some of its fleet.^[19]
• Aviva uses Frutiger as its official typeface.
• The British Army uses Arial for internally produced documents, but Frutiger for external publications, especially recruiting materials.
• CDI Corporation uses Frutiger as its official typeface, according to the CDI Identity Guide.
• The Citizens Advice service uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[20]
• CityRail (Rail operator in Sydney, Australia) uses Frutiger for railway station signs in Sydney and across their network, however it is now being superseded after the city's transport network rebranding.
• Connexions in the UK uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[21]
• The ETAS Group uses Frutiger LT as its official typeface.
• Gecina, a real estate investment trust, uses Frutiger in its logo.
• The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Hong Kong uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[22]
• Kieser Training AG and Kieser Training Australia use Frutiger as their official typeface.^[23]
• The British band Muse use Frutiger in their band logo.
• England's National Health Service uses Frutiger as its standard typeface.^[24] Frutiger was also used by the British Department of Social Security/Department for Work & Pensions for many years.
• Schindler Group uses Frutiger as part of its brand. The company name is in Frutiger in the official website.
• SS Great Britain uses Frutiger as its official sans-serif based typeface, along with Trajan.
• URENCO Group, a nuclear fuel company operating several uranium enrichment plants in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States, uses Frutiger as its official typeface for all marketing materials.

Other uses

• Bay Area Rapid Transit, a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area, uses Frutiger for all signage.^[25]
• The Dutch emergency services use Frutiger for their vehicle striping.^[26]
• The Finnish Defence Forces uses Frutiger as its official typeface.^[27]
• The US National Park Service uses Frutiger as one of two fonts across the entire agency.^[28]
• Schiphol Airport uses Frutiger for all signage.^[29]
• The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung uses Frutiger wherever possible for all printed matter.

See also

• Typography
• Public signage typefaces
• Segoe UI Licensing Controversy

References

Bibliography

• Meggs, Philip, and Rob Carter. Typographic Specimens: The Great Typefaces. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1993, p. 163. ISBN 0-442-00758-2.
• Gibson, Jennifer. "Univers and Frutiger." Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classical Typefaces, Ed. Philip Meggs and Roy McKelvey. RC Publications: 2000, pp. 176–177. ISBN 1-883915-08-2.

External links

• Typophile Typowiki: Frutiger
• linotype.com: Frutiger typeface family overview & related information
• ASTRA Frutiger Schrift
• Humanist 777
• Frutiger Type Family Overview

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