Adrian Frutiger

Adrian Frutiger is the designer of many well-known and popularly used typefaces of the 20th and 21st centuries, such Avenir, Univers, and Frutiger (named after himself, obviously).  Frutiger was born in 1928 in Switzerland, where he grew up and studied at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts.  In 1951 he moved to Paris, where he began creating typefaces and preparing type for photo compositions while working for the company Deberny & Peignot.  It wasn't until 1957 that Frutiger achieved worldwide attention after designing the typeface "Univers", a sans-serif font that was first produced for metal and film.  

From there, Frutiger's career continued to progress and prosper.  He founded his own design firm with Bruno Pfäffli and André Gürtler near Paris in 1961, where he also taught for ten years as a professor at the Ecole Estienne and spent eight years teaching at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.  Frutiger not only worked to create typefaces, but also to improve upon and expand them.  He redefined his work to include more weight and italicization options.  By doing so, his work is even more usable and applicable for typographic needs around the world.  Fruitger remains one of only a few typeface designers whose career has included a combination of hot metal, photographic, and digital type work.  



Sources: http://www.identifont.com/show?110
http://www.designishistory.com/1940/adrian-frutiger/

"Typography" - finding and creating a word

"Typography" using objects found around the Art and Design Building (Chalmers Hall) of KU  and using entirely motorcycles.  

Elements of Typography: Beginning with Tschichold

Jan Tschichold is widely considered one of the most powerful and influential typographic designers of the 20^th Century.  He worked heavily in the area of new typography and sans-serif typefaces in his homeland of Germany, until the rise of the Nazi party when he fled to Switzerland after his designs began to challenge traditional German culture.  Tschichold is also well known for his work with the well known Penguin Books company.  

Tschichold grew up emerged in art and design.  His father was a sign painter, and Tschichold followed in his footsteps, studying calligraphy and design at the Leipzig Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Production.  Not shortly after, however, he abandoned the traditional styles of letter making and took up the idea of the newly popular modernist movement.  His designs moved into a more radical, asymmetrical and geometrical style.  His creations of sans-serif, simple, and clean typefaces came as a welcoming breath of air in the heavily gothic and script-style world of German type.

After an arrest by Nazi authorities and a narrow escape to Switzerland, Tschichold settled into the quieter role of a book designer, favoring more traditional layouts and styles.  Fourteen years later, Tschichold took a position at Penguin Books, where he eventually created developed their iconic, standardized cover design and produced over 500 book covers. 

To learn more: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/jan-tschichold/
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Jan-Tschichold

Introduction to Blog!

The following blog is being created during my sophomore year of college at The University of Kansas, as a Graphic Design Major.  This blog will serve as an outlet, a resource, and a viewing area of questions, concerns, thoughts, processes, and projects throughout my time as a student at KU and possibly longer.

- Amy DeHart