sor'4N FRUTIGER SWISS FOUNDATION TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY TYPE FACES. me COM pLetEWOR KSContent ‘avian Feige —The stderr ‘elem Apts eo we is baok 2 ” ‘ein Futter a mats Gace Print ‘nu det Lat, Fe ee arse Dame ed ype fot fmf tanto Pst ‘ypleneapariaon Date That ey Proce Ron Poets Samer ‘wou wns sets ‘Wotan eanparison ements Annu apresch a tpe Folate prions and sine nine Roa Oios Suit os by Debra Peat. Debory oPogrt mate tyes ‘ypteneoparion mien oa Min La tanage degen iytmandpeporion Tralee toga Dial a shapes i atre ‘yous eanparion Conti Laity ‘ome Lume Lats leon fess Phan Lape “amt ot Emagen nts oes omens srl ayo Ser ds Jou Pes a Ubi Patan pts Linas Uns Utes gales pa Utes iaatons Feige’ owt on th ew itp ‘hott campaign 18 Eaten spice tphotosaing ‘gue ot Eporan tons tims af patting Delon tye ‘Th quay a on yal pe Tyga companion 120 Opie Delogent of Oa Famal characte 134 Aphabet ny ‘ASatsatln wit yt 128 Apa Pucton sages of Ala Slt ements pala ‘aaa sa bak ypesce Nastia fle 148 Aphabet Enreprse Fans Bourges Calitesion 150 Canon Tn comlopaat ot oncode Adami sre et estaba nth dani once 156 Sete Gate Gspanteratenk ‘srg aan ata ee ‘Theharane inte yoteanoe 160 Aiphate Tipton oa conpter stage Sli set pfs you Advertsing See Typtn ompaton 16 ocn Wldvtesancrtatan Machine edt etc Chorace reap Desgrieg OCH Aphestons Type compan 190 Univer 1M Canoes Cope wh ‘yeting on plc uty “ype sign re Comper 198 Aphabet DF-6OF Actes ona 22 Kaa ‘ston glee nearat £206 DennaganTort Sait! the fan tts indepen sree Indian sree ga the ew ana ‘ina ape 218 Apia 218 Docmenta ‘Ahamonus OOR ypetice 220 Aipabet Foca Crlpoe aagn and Nc to Lignan eet yan Uno gn ten inrmtan ces 220 Alpe Brancher ‘pete 6 ic os ane Dt wen Thee lie Theat omin a ptae DStempe!A6 ‘Der Norsch deine Zhen Toes eonpetaon 244 Alper mr Tie Moi Pas he ibe Landon The etow 248 Aipater Cone GnresPomldon ‘a pelea Contre eres Pompidou COP 250 rue ‘Stage pe becomes a pe Frage retype Cpa eecen Concrete Fruger asp! Fru: ad the Post ico ‘Na cui aon oe gotagye IsFutyo at may 2 rug” ‘ha dtl vasons Totton Fag: Thecalow ae hp Thpetcecaparaon eto roe pe AS tg 288 hohe Safa ves Gata Dieses Set ‘hones eoparaon 216 tome Tecnica dtp ment ha dtrban type Crabs eomaratbck wore comparison 286 Bagh Tipe esos bree alan Jers eating ot ypetce Tyorten comparison 296 Donen an ‘Daten vents Ome ‘NteteDaer poet m2 aman Tamar Aqua ate Zit Th Zh cerry ease angus ‘yore cmoarion 200 Vesites itor zac nin pete Design th rw endge "Moltntyptes at Ute Deering et Space ‘wotecncoparson 318 Lt Cesena Latpes dente Chracnton pe [anda noclsea typtce 100 yas of Ute oeetig Two des ses Thos emparaon20 Anair Drak Anumant nee poten Studs on fa gtaane En rome sos Set Ares contooed gona New We aod oo Pocono matting Tipetcn comparon 16 Westside Conse ie Westsce Theale shor Tiptaenomparaon 282 Veto, Gena rma on ecu macan Ghee se star plt Sand impact atpelace Tipe parson 262 Linge iat eget dete Theos rman at decabe one Tita comparison 270 Werden “on bebe Gta stolons of cram “Tor nb trier tees Tete compara 70 Shinide att ypatce 0 Fate Cpa Aer acon aman pete Fue apts Sore 288 Pamplane Fath: devapnent af TS The cen at peiene Tipette compara “Tp abr Gutta Shape chrgesin he minis Tipe omparson 386 Fut Soes/ Fie Spols Fom toe Frage Saba 00 frutgeHeocgt Neon” A ypetce resent erng Ma camry ihe mig Tipe compare 108 Syaapss t Fig Types ‘pata casteston Papo em Parson teat Feral eonadeatone unctaton and pea chnctes Protucionat pe 24 fandttng 2 Lampe toting (8 Mahne seting~ Slee castng 1D Aono pawns 129 Machine etn ~Uneatg 109 Strin-ancarpston 23 Yarn pe 243 Loti potty D5 CHT ton 7 Lseeating 361 Dita pang tags and waren sa rte 196 9608 Bisa dats 316 19-1 ‘6 581-208, Adendo wn toe 2 Bogagty 1 Ancreond piee {44 Pasion Aion Frater {at Spe oiler by Aan ugar 15 Fine ae 145 fad tree {Potato sou Adan agers 146 Arie on Aden Faia’ {50 Calsbatons wither companies 452 Ut ot tanatine 154 Lata tee 1 onesKurt Weidemann Adrian Frutiger —- The standard-setter With Gutenberg’s invention of the adjustable hand mould, no less was achieved than the industrial scale production of a commodity - metal type - in any desired quantity and ‘with consistent quality, effectively ushering in the modem era. Master scribes were re placed by master printers. This Invention would last half a millennium before it,in turn, ‘was pushed aside by photosetting, by information being transmitted at the speed of light, ‘The end result, however, was still a printed letter on a page. Unfortunately a correspond: ingly fast improvement in human comprehension has not been forthcoming, The composi tion of our brains is basically unchanged since the time of Adam&Eve. An a is an a, and always will be. At the threshold of this new era in printing technology, one name stood out: Adrian Frutiger. The measurer and standard. setter of all things typographic. In his 1961 diploma submission, Adrian Frutiger produced nine wooden panels on which he had engraved, lotter by letter, examples of Western alphabets ~ from Greek inscriptional capitals to ‘humanistic minuscules and cursives. It was already apparent in this work that he was a master of space, proportion and order. It was clear even then that his career path would be characterised by his passion for the criteria of legibility and the beauty of form. During, his time in France, typefaces such as Méridien, Serifa, Iridium and Linotype Centennial ‘were produced, typefaces that captured the zeitgeist, and which are still proving their ‘worth today. Around the middle of the last century work began on the production of a typeface family with the name Univers. A system ordered and classified into 21 members was a totally new approach at the time. These 21 members would find their application in every ‘area of use: from gracing posters to appearing on the smallest packaging leaflet. he first step in the generation of every printed product developed by a highly specialised profes: sionis the choice of a typeface and its design.As much for movable type as for photosetting, ‘and the compositor, this typeface is still the Iynchpin at the end of those 500 years. It represents both the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. If survival down the ages is an Important criterion for art, then this is also true for the art of typography. And itis all the more true for a typographic art that neither displays nor has need of modish showiness, ‘With Adrian Frutiger there has always been a seamless transition between applied ‘and fine art. The glyphs of his Indian typeface and of his logotypes have also been applied. in his sculptures, reliefs and woodcuts in a free and uniquemanner. They spring from the same sense of form and strength of expression as his applied art. Everything that takes ‘and assumes shape in his works has been filtered through his depth of knowledge and his power of thought. However, Adrian Frutiger has always remained a great, yet modest man, ‘a:man who, in his dedication to his work in the service of type and the word, and in his ‘ceaseless invention in the form and material of his fine art works has been, and will remain, astandard-setter, 6 paeraceAdrian Frutiger A typeface is a tool ‘Working with hot metal was my first experience of the power of type to make the whe world of thought legible simply by re-arranging the same letters over and over again. made it clear to me that optimum readability should always be foremost when developi ‘a typeface, But then we found ourselves in an era in which type was no longer set usi lead characters, but with beams of light. Transforming the typefaces of the old maste from the old to the new process was the best learning experience for me. But when it ca to the grotesques, I had an idea of my own. And from that idea arose the Univers fam ‘Technical progress took a great leap forward, Moving typefaces to electronic represen tion brought with it the jaggies and later the vectorisation of the outlines, Given my sen of form, it was quite a painful experience. Now, though, with font creation programm ‘and their resolution. independent Bézier curves, and with lasersetting, it looks to me li our journey through the desert is finally over, Other tasks fell to me, OGRA set me the problem of designing characters that we readable not only to the human eye, but also to mechanical ones - something that stir up, shall we say, an aesthetic conflict that taught me how to think about things in a ¢ ferent way. With the signage concepts for the airports and the Paris Métro I worked large-scale typefaces. That's how I came to realise that, in all sizes, readability follows t ‘same rules about counters and sidebearings. When I was asked to think about the Indi typefaces, this uncharted territory amazed me, Only when I began to write and draw t characters, did become awareof the deep-seated connections between theIndo-Europe ‘cultures. It took only a short time for me to grasp thet my task consisted of impart 500 years of Western experience in setting and printing technology. My Indian colleagu would have to find their own way forward from there. ‘The evolution of these letters - this continual simplification from symbol to sound. something that has always preoccupied me, Twas always fascinated by the symbol as t expression of a signature, a brand, and above all, a cipher. This connection between lett ‘and symbols brought me into the commercial world of the logo as an area of operation. the course of my working life bullt up knowledge and skill-To impart those achievemer ‘and experiences to the next generation became the most important thing. In May 1968 t intellectual climate changed. tn their impetuousness, the students pushed their craft cone side and tried to solve problems simply by force of intellect. I could never expre myself only through words, without using my hands and the tools of my trade. So I ha chronicled my legacy in my books, through my writing and my drawing (On my career path I learned to understand that beauty and readability ~ and up t« certain point, banality ~ are close bedfellows: the best typeface is the one that imping least on the reader's consciousness, becoming the sole tool that communicates the me ing of the writer to the understanding of the reader, rom Ai Fier Lenten an Seton pape ‘The book that you are holding is the result of many conversations between myself a friends from the profession, conducted over a period of two years at my studio in Bremg ten near Bem. Brich Alb, Rudolf Barmettler and Philipp Stamm used their subtle but the same time — direct questioning and discussing to awake in me memories that, for yea had been deeply buried. For that | am grateful to them. We met once a month, and talk about my typeface design work in chronological order. Tt was almost like living my prof sional life all over again, beginning with the school in Zurich, through my time at Deber Peignot and then on to Linotype. ‘Without the discussions between specialists, my friends in the profession, and ott advisors, this book would never have happened. My thanks go to Heidrun Osterer, Pili ‘Stamm, my above-mentioned colleagues, and to Silvia Werfel, who transformed the tr: scripts into proper German.Introduction How to use this book Book sructre This book fs vided into thee sections: typeface chap ters, explanations of typesetting technologies, and pages dedicated tologos.Theyhavebecnordradchor logically. In order to flow the development of Adan Frtige' type designs clearly the ypatae chapter se ‘quenceisbasod onthe year olthedesignofthe ypetaca, not oft ablation or production; inmany eases the ates are very widely separated, Sic tho designs a saldomdated. andthe corespondencedoes nt always provide the ralevant information, n some cates the £6 uence cannot bedefniivaly varies Inadetion, may ‘ypotaces wore developed in paral Typeface chapter structure The structure within the chaptorsthemashves i argoly chronological fromthe coneaptionofetypeface tough tots dewlopment publishing ard marketing, For the anajsisatthaend of evarychapter(sample text ypoface dimensions, ypeface comparison, height comparison) the distal version ofthe sypatace war uso ince It ‘contains the chercter eta Of every avedsble weight chapter le Lowereate letters are not avilable ia every one of -Acian Frtigers typefaces. To msinainvava cohesion throughout the book all chapter tiles were st in capi tal Cur tides ‘AcianFrige'typotacos ar clasfiod as book ype: feces jabbing ypelaces, signage typefaces, corpcfat ‘ypotaces and ype-dosign projects. This clasieation ‘an be found naxt to the page numbor Additionally, [egos wordmarks and palace production a sir, ‘yperetng tchnoloay pages ‘Adan Frusger developed manyothistypefacesinight cofthothon-curenttypescting technologies, begining vith EgyptienneF through to OCR- and to Frtiger Neonserpt So that eaders who are not overly fair withthe technology may better understand the easons Behind aparticulr ypelace design, themost important ‘ypatetingwachnclogios have boon gen short descrip tions in ths book Each techrique is intredveed before the typetace chapter where it sist used ogo pages The myriad logos end wordmatis produced by Adrian Frutige and hs co-workers are extremely hard te dal COftonthe companies are no longorin business, or thoy lonet keep an atchive recor of such things. Often it Ismay not posiba ta find out for whom a partiedar logowasdosigned,and whethortwasindaodever used. For this reason the logos are gathered together in ur ‘eal time pertods on single pope The arangemert and descriptions areas precise asthe avaabe ner ton allows 10 inrmooucrion Wide text columns “Thet contain Aen Futiger's own words rom the con vorsatons with rich Alb, Rudo Barmatle und Philipp Stamm. The editors have checked the accuracy of the Domendates and ther factses for asporablesenchave npexpandedth nfomsationwherenecossry. Addition aly, where necessary, the text has been supplemented sith quotations by Frsige rom other sours. ‘The fet persontaxt has been aetin Egyptienne By doing ths, this typeface ~ which had fallen somewhat futof fashion whenitwas chosenin 2002 should ach ‘row audience Indeed ntholstfewyearsthesbacome 1 popular body text for magasings in Switzerland, Narrow tox columns ‘Tho tnt in hero colin et nthe sobee goometic ‘Avene Witten by the editors, iluminates the futher Interrelation of Actin Fratgor’s ype design work with reference to context, ration and use. It abo contains teach typeface's history and technology. charactor set comparison Esch chapter contains a comparison of the chorscter Set in tho ovignal setting technology and in the digital font. Sample text {As an lustration ofthe text image each typeface aval ble india formiegivon page with iinguals ample textin various point sles. The sizes ae adjusted fom Chapter to chapter or optical consistency. The barring tnd lescing ae harmonsedwith ach other The respec tive deals are found underneath the sample teat. ‘ypelace measued arabs Por typataces ith savor! wright, the proportions of hight to width ofthe normal face are given ae wel tha black and oblique. Fo thecleution ofthe propor tions a find cap height of foc was chosen Tho letter proportions of Hno were measured, along with the weight of vrtial and horizontal seals Typeface comparison This compares Adan Feutige's typeface with two other similar ypataces from ditoron signers The choice of omportontypelaces wet made eccordngtosinlees Incharacterand form, evel a ho yoarof creation The Printing typeface dassiation plays only a subsidiary Toe. Using the chosen characters, the derences bo tween Adrian Fritger's typefaces and the others are ‘demonstrate. Height comparison Inthe mare comprehensive chapters the typeface com parison i sypplemented by a height comparison For themensurementof typefaceheght (ted Pgurs)acep height of tem was used. Additonal, the proportions relationship ofascarders and desconderstothex hoight Tagen (black FaureName of typetace Commissioned by Designer Design| Publication Typesetting technology Manufacture Weights Univers Deberny&Peignot Advan Frutiger 1953/1957 Handstting = DebernyPeignct 20 Swiss 722| Zurich” Photon umitye photosetting _— DebernyPaignot aol notype Univers Moctine setting |photoseting —— Moretype 2 CCRT and ose digital typesetting D.Stempel AG Lnotype 21 PosSeriptaigital typesetting — Adobe [Unetype 2 Btetrea 2 notype" e UNIVERS ‘As work on the Lumitype progressed and the first classic fonts had been drawn, we turned. ‘our attention to sans serif fonts, Charles Peignot was in no doubt that the foundry’s best: selling typeface, Futura ~ known in France as Europe ~ ought to be included in the range. suggested another project to him because I felt that Furope was no longer contemporary. In the ‘Univers special edition’ of TM 1/1961 /au I stated my reasons: “{..] The simple rhythm of classical architecture is reflected in the typefaces of the time; inner spaces and blank spaces have the same value, their arrangementis determined. by one unit of space. Modern architecture secks new rhythms. Even sans serifs no longer possess the classical equal space for counters and right side bearings; the counters are more open and the spaces between letters narrower. This is one of the most pressing ques: tions of design asked of new sans serif, The influence sans serif type has had on typo: graphy has gone hand in hand with all other kinds of revolutions over the course of the last hundred years. Lithographic business card fonts were cut by most type foundries at the end of the last century. Some of these old sans serifs have had a real renaissance with- in the last twenty years, once the reaction of the ‘New Objectivity’, with its geometrical principles of construction, had been overcome, A purely geometrical form of type is un- sustainable over a larger period of time. The eye sees horizontal lines thicker than vertical ‘ones, « perfect circle looks misshapen when used as an O in a word, Our time seems to have found its expression in concrete. Modern concrete buildings aren't necessarily geo: metrical; their forms have tension and liveliness. Type has to have these things too. |..." Thad learned as a student under Walter Kich in Zurich to model sans serif shapes on those of classical antiquas. My first drafts of a sans serif face date from this period (see page 21). As a continuation of these studies I finished the first drawings for Univers winter 1953 with the word ‘monde’ ne, which I sent to Emil Ruder, the typography teacher at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in Basel, for his opinion. He suggested minimally widen- ing the characters os. He also thought that the letter shapes should be oriented around Glassical - antiquas. We determined that “in the regular weight, applying the roman prin- le to the capitals would be desirable, that is narrow letters with two square shapes on top of one another (BEFPRS) in contrast to the wide shapes that touch on being square (OCGNH). Looking to the planned narrow and expanded weights, al letters would have to be more or less evenly balanced.” So I came up with some designs based on Capitalis Monumentalis soy, because even the M with its spread legs ns wasn't consistent in the various degrees of width and boldness."The classical double loop shape of the g was re ected for similar reasons, it looks forced in narrow, small and italic weights. Before I started drawing the typeface I designed a construction diagram for myself ray. These are only sketches, as I wanted to know first of all whether it was doable to go About Univers. Univers owes its existence tothe cour ge and progrssive spr of Chavos Poignt, who haa the foresight to back such an unprecented project. For tho rt ime everalarge typeface family was Inunchoc withou fist testing afew weights onthe market? Fut (er san aerf design Fomistime asa student atthe Kunstgowerboschule in Zurich in 150/51 served a the starting point! (sea page 2), Made easier by new in txpersive type production methods or umaype phot Setting. 21 weights 01 were conceived inthe Sense and Inowledge of demand for functional, contemporary typetace Inthe Sis Typographic Magacine TM/STM 5/1957, Ruder writes nat“ seemed hopeles to embark upon sucha hugoverturethatwoul wy theendurancect bath the designers andthe company What consinced us hat inwould've asiccess? We believe inthe neestor 9 Big inthe field of ype design. Onocan eel the urge to seabovethe superficiality of the day and create some thing of real substance, Moreover we balove in ans sei ranaisonce."* Emil Ruder i aking about sans sorifin the sense of « ‘universal typeface forall kinds of uses inching book. andnowspapecseting He thought Universwasproving ‘natleenough tft thebil anditwasprovedso when TMeditr Rudolf Hostetierstaredsettinghis megane ontiraly in Univers from 1961 onward. ther oxarplary designs and publications flowed arcu from the Basel school gving Univers ever more exposure and so antributingto the wotdwde reputation of Swe Typo ‘raphy’ Space merit goes to Emil Ruder and some of Ne Bosal student who would go.onto befamous typo. ‘graphors: Frit Gottschalk Hans urg Hunker, ane Rudolf Liz, Bruno PRAT and Helmut Schmid w came butafew? Inthe pain, objective, unombelished world of Swiss Typography, esymmaticaly aranged and stn only foo contrasting weights 2nd point sites, the slogance of Univers was especially noticeable. Univers brought Intemational fame to Adtian Fatiges showed th ‘great ype designer was at workkjy/HOLIE lz z stuchr fate) flambe = : rit ne @ win XOV # vez-vous gouté le fameux whisky que j ai beaucoup vendu ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPORSTUVWXYZ AwEefiflR—&-GAAAaaaakee Eeet NaUiiiOci 1234567890% =:(t)y'! ce;COe:$ +5from tight, fine letters to wide, bold ones. Ijust wanted to check the whole spectrum. I de cided that the vertical axis should be the right side of the stem. The line had to be the same for each weight. The stroke width was on the left, it was exactly the same within each weight. On the right were the widths, from narrow to wide. This ‘accordion’ wasn’t math- ematical, I determined the stroke widths of the single weights and also the letter widths by feel. The letters became almost equally wide in their corresponding widths.That means that ann from the light weight had - from the right edge of the frst to the right edge of the second downstroke~almost the same width as ann from the bold weight. This diagram represents the idea, the whole thing isn’t identical to the finished Univers shapes. Tused. the n for the diagram published in TM 5/1967, but I changed it to h in later publications because of its ascender. There too the letter widths were presented as being mathemati cally identical, which looked more scientific a" During my first visit to Photon Inc. in the USA, who, after Méridien, had also taken ‘on Univers, one of the people responsible for type came up to me and showed me a who! batch of films with Univers letters. He laid them one on top of each other on a light box ‘and confronted me with lots of calculations. He was looking for a mathematical connec: tion hetween boldness and width and couldn't figure out how'd calculated it. Some of his results coincidently led to a connection with the Golden Section. When I told him that 1 had worked out the basic type grid by intuition, he was nonplussed, not to say disap- pointed, [constructed Univers on horizontal-vertical axis. That was my starting point. All the different weights of width and boldness came from this cross, even the terminals fit inside in au. Univers has horizontal terminals at the ends of the curves like uncials ov. I was avare that in the regular weight a diagonal, classic curved end would have been nicer, but I wanted to make 21 weights and Icoulda’t cut the narrow weights diagonally, it just didn’t look good, The horizontal ending was a matter of consistency for me, with respect to the whole font family. The tis an exception. The t arc ends vertically rather than hori zontally wv. All letters with a tight radius have this ending, that’s fjr and t. The slanted. ‘cut of thet demonstrates my respect for writing with a pen. I never liked it horizontal, a tis nota cross. Ididn’tdo a slanted cut in the ampersand /au, becauseto me that character is composed of two capitals, F and T. ‘Much later, in the 70s, there was a further diagram sw, This study for the Linotype ‘company, with the title “The Definition of Medium’ had the following problem: readers are used toa certain proportion between black and white.As soon as that proportion changes: a bit, readers find it unpleasant. I's a subconscious thing. A lot of foundries had to add. ‘another weight, the so-called ‘book’, to the regular one because of that. They'd seen that Historical seripts: Greek lapidary, Sheth contury Roman Capitals Monumental, 1s century AD; Anglo trish sem uncials th century. | ‘ q TRAIAN QAVGGERMDAC | MAXIMOTRIBPOPRVIIIM? Historical background Groeklapidary script 9/isthe vgn ofsansserftype.Theiea wasseized upon some 2000 yea Iter fr typefaces in the erly th contr. In france sane sors are known a antiques inraferance 10 thor andiont origin, and some contemporary type faces ielude Rin heir names, suchas Antique Olive by F andere Oive,or Antique Presse by Deberny &Peignat 10. Universo, prior tlbeing named wasknown imply 8 Antique AB/ at Daberny& Peignot® The Roman form principle of letters, based on square, fe, langle arcupright double sqe6/09/,may seem an idel archetype for Univers butimpeacical or plan ning typeface family made up of four diferent widths and two slopes Frtiger brought the ep wit into line ke Grek lapicary script and ule rutre whichis based onthe Roman principle of Capitals Monuments ltaln doing is, he conformed to fe necdassical sans se proportions ofthe 1th canta, Unciseriginste inthe 2rdcontry AD: Those of pach ment paper and pen changed the shapes of capitals. They Became rounder and softer, ard some asconders and descenders started to appear. Smal eters began to emerge rom the capitals Ths was perfected inthe Irish Roman som neil 0, wh ro tho soko ends aro broader wth horizontal terminal, This ie what Adrian Frtigertreferingtowhanhe speaks ofuncalterminals inUniversn, ‘Acian tiger abuays ts his vsualntition aude him, tnd only afeerwards does he ty to fre principles t2 ‘explain the facts. A comparison ho made botween the proportions of datsic and modern typefces relates thomtociaesic and modem architecture (Greok tomes, Bauhaus) 01 The missing Seis mean that sans son faces do not have equal spaces for counters and side bearings ary moves they had befor, The counters ae mote open the spaces between laters (sidebesings) tatower This reflects the thoughts of is tutor, Walter Kh, Somo ofthe asset form principles of Univers wore adopted by Fstigor ram Waltar Kc? The downstroks are evenly spaced in sery typefaces sans serfs havea mare varied rhythm lke ‘modern architecture mund mundi “orcences ubr ms PaRemus'ab1 Fe Oe re 4 I mie nena oe Snee oe © MAD UETIOGIN ECAC Tt VT Se 92 rexr weeracetheir first version was too delicate or too strong for a text face. That's why I found interesting to define what a regular weight is, Ilaid a grid over the letters of classic ty faces and could later see exactly what relationship there was between both parts. In had the means to apply this ratio toa sans serif typeface. Converted intoa grid with un it gives a lowercase n with the stroke width of one unit a counter width of three units a cone unit each for left and right side bearing. A whole letter is then five units wide, wit relation of five and a half units in height. determined the regular weight of Univers together with Emil Ruder. He was a gre help to me. We looked at it in thereduction and discussed it for a long time, how the wid should be in relation to height and white space. He'd written his corrections, like openi the counters, on card in the final artwork. That's how Univers was made, after ma ‘constructive discussions with Emil Ruder. Univers 55 is my most successful ‘Medium’ ‘The choice of name was important commercially. It was talked about early on, wh the project was frst laid on the table and journalists started to write about it. By 1956 couldn‘t simply be called the ‘the new sans serif by Deberny®Peignot’ any longer. Gen al director Stanislas Boyer, Charles and Rémy Peignot and I chose the name.” We start with my test word ‘monde’ ~ afer Europe we were anxious to branch out further th Europe~I was sure that ‘monde’ wouldn't work, because it would be understood as"Mor (moon) in German. Boyer suggested ‘Galaxy’, and Rémy came up with ‘Universal’ If ‘were talking large dimensions, then why not go all the way? So Charles Peignot turned into ‘Univers, French for the universe. ‘To represent the 21 weights of the Univers font family Tused uppercase H and E a the word ‘monde’ in my diagram ri. I would show the regular weight first and put t four bold weights next to each other. At the bottom I put the narrower weights and rig at the very bottom! added the wide ones.I quickly realised that the wide weights belong at the top instead /m7. Then I mirrored the whole diagram and turned it 90 degrees, sot the bolds were at the bottom, the lights atthe top and the wides onthe left with thenarro con the right. That's how the weights were numbered in ascending order wy ‘As already mentioned in the ‘Caractéres Lumitype’ chapter, there was trouble naming the weights w. Thad already introduced a numbering system for Lumitype for in order to make ordering easier (see page 76). That served as the basis for the Unive numbering, the first digit stands for the stroke width and the last digit is width and slo Uneven last digits are upright weights, evens are italics. Univers is constructed like st “55 was the starting point; its black-whiterelation is meant for booksetting. Its neighbou to the left and right (all the fifties) have exactly the same stroke thickness. What chang are the innerspaces andside-bearings, which result in thenarrow and compressed welgl dontcal stroke widths in diferent ‘widths and near identical widihs Im aferene weights af Univers by Deberny E Pignot me Prutiger’s definition of the Medi (19708) showing the ration of the {height to stroke width, counte ‘and charactor with Univere 55 behind in grey Schematic diagram in four weights development of curves ‘and counters ofthe compressed ‘condensed, regular and festended typefacesmoyen Gemresson Gun tea clu dun groupe pin 4 pet pneu HE [HE monde | monde HE |HE monde | monde HE monde HE ‘monde one Lt es ‘ i HE (s/HE [HE “esses monde | monde| monde| eS mye arma awe 4 ext rveerace Rion de surpronant av fat que lo graphisme une epaque correspondent 9 une svelton de [a cultura chee un pauple termine, rvéle ou ‘minante do la cutur de co poupl. ext note: rement tvident que la typogrante allemand 8 {18 tr longtemps marquee parla gothique consisdrée comme caractere repésentati? ‘Fexprossion est plus subtle sans doute maic “éviderte. Elle se manifeste dans fous les Jo imaines et ce serait une erreur que de recher Cher la typographie exclusivement dans les livres édlés & intention des bibliophiles. Le lettre est par défintion une eréation spiritwole monde | monde| fe Me [HE ‘cre | monde |mende He monde BIEUnivers diagrams ‘The HE monde’ dagram 16/ Shows the 21 Univers weight na frst undated sighily rough depiction. The handwritten nemes ofeach weight in two languages ao stil rumberles onthe yallowed photographic print Two sight reworked dlagrams in English tlodUniversal family’ andSansr"/9 probs. blyfellowed son afte accompanying a memorandum by Lous Rorenbli fram February Y9S4 The weights ave diferent names all thre samples, which hows how problematic thedefiniions were. nthe same note seme names ere macted about forthe new ‘Sar Ses by Deberny& Paignot. "Universal, ‘Constelation and ‘Cosmos’ are suggested" rangedversion® Ris thefisttoilade (Lomigype) numbering isgrm a1 Thsweighte of trademarkfor Univers D&P, ATE and, later on, Haas foundry used it for type samples and advrticomnts Remy Peignot in particular coated innovative versions of tis dagrem: sometimes the rectangles ere hemes, fometimes they are black or cloured areas, and ome times they serve as a window tothe nivarae/2. Ry was alko responsible for ho ‘uno 9 diagram with empty spaces for possible extensions ef the type far. [earvedtademonatrtethe dimensions ofthe Univers coneapt Bruno PM, ypographic designer and colleague (later te be sudio partner) of Aion Frutigers asa made + Universchagram DY whichister bocame areal trademark of Univers. Designed for American Type Founders ATE in 192, wns ft displayed in Monotype Nawal 10/1969. Reduced tothe eesertials thon the latter in all weights, he takes onthe task of designing the trrangement ofthe aingram What stan out i tho 16° Ingino ofthe Univers talc weight, unusual ota sans tert Along with ts large verity of weight, this eye- Catching Ialie Became one of the rain typographic rors of Univers as cn bo soon inthe advertisement for Monotype by Hans-Rudol Lut 6 but also at 2 ‘wotking typeface. Words set in Univer aie can be found mot eatlyintextbodies which eadlyisnormally notthe case with other san serif ‘he diagram from TM 5/1857 has the correct arrangement ofthe 21 Univers weights, which are numbered accordingly. ‘appear semi-bold and bold. In the extended weights, on the other hand, this makes th look thin. This principle was applied to all weights. For this reason it was necessary attach a bold 80 for the extended widths and a 30 for the compressed ones”"*The 83 pears nearly as bold as the 75."The same goes for 39 in comparison with 47 Later I ask ‘myself whether it was right that this way a light stroke width appeared to become a re lar stroke width in a compressed weight, or whether it would have been better to ada the stroke width optically. I happened to have it like that in my diagram, and figured corrected anything the grading wouldn't be right anymore. In the end it was more o ‘matter of logic for me than harmony. It could be regarded as an error, but T did it c sciously. In later adaptations for photosetting this was changed. Initially Univers was intended for Lumitype. Nevertheless 1did my final artwork in pendently of photosetting methods, on Bristol board with opaque white paint. For met only way was to deliver drawings ready for cutting and casting. At that time T already h colleagues to help with the final artwork. My best helper was Lucette Girard, finished. the regular weights with her, based on the drawings stuck together, which Emil Ruder h reviewed. Ladislas Mandel tackled the wide weights a He introduced new working me ods, scraperboards and stencils for drawing curves. Albert Boton, who was new in t studio, did the narrow weights, which were slightly easier to draw. Only once the final a ‘workwas ready weretheoptical corrections for photosetting addressed. The regular weig ‘was more or less okay, but the bold and compressed weights were pretty bad. 1 had to drs some awful caricatures, put serifs on and make huge cuts in the angles so that the ty ‘would look right when exposed e7.It was one heck of an ordeal! ‘The fact that Charles Peignot had taken on the Univers project was an enormous g for me. It took quite some courage on his part to decide to make it for hot metal toc ‘worked out that there were 35000 punches to cut. Peignot saw that sales of Europe we ‘dwindling rapidly and that the foundry was in danger of going down. Univers gave t ‘many engravers much-needed work and the foundry could survive another few years.” ‘When manufacturing the lead characters, we determined that Univers had a good s on Lumitype, so we kept the character widths, So that they always remained the sam devised a system of steel templates. They were inserted in the casting device with t corresponding width and then the letter was cast. The casters worked in the morning wh they were still sober and tidy. In the afternoons there were some who filled their belli ‘with a few litres of wine. Unfortunately Tleft too much right side bearing and they had be recast. Of the originally planned 21 weights for hot metal setting, 20 were made, though n the 49 weight under 10pt. There were only 20 weights for Lumitype photosetting, the ‘Rémy Peigno’ Univer dizqram {from 1957 published in 11/1963 ~ shows possible eatensio tothe 21 weights, | = op [monde monde “rune monde =) ere [|| monde monde monde monde | aonde nan [— aa monde — monde monde — monde monde = monde monde monde mondeweight was missing as it led to problems with exposure. The entire range was completed for Monotype and Monophoto. The vast number of font weights - the first time for ones based on the same basic concept~ enabled the designers tofit the ‘clothing’ tothe content and not the other way round. Something light and dainty could be set in light condensed, something very heavy in black extended Univers, Later Linotype and other manufacturers added more weights - whatever they may be called, they're not all mine. I felt ike the sorceror’s apprentice who forgets the magie word. One of the things to decide about shape was the size ofthe capitals. The different cap heights was just theory in the Univers projet au, it would have complicated the whole hhot metal production. The engravers would tell me that it was out of the question for a caster to take an E that wasn’t on the base line, it had never occured in their lifetimes. 1 instantly backed down. However, Emil Ruder thought it was good to draw the uppercase letters slightly smaller than the ascender, which was also discarded because ofthe rela ly tall x-height. He was ofthe opinion that a text image ought to look roughly the sam in any language, no matter if it was German with lots of capitals or a romance language with few of them aw. In TM1/1961 Ruder demonstrates a text in three languages - German, French and English ~ and says that Univers works for all of them, which is not entirely true in my opinion. Anyway I've changed my views on it with the passage of time, because the reader benefits from a clear distinction between upper- and lowercase. The capitals aren't conspicuous in Univers because of the white spaces. In M and N, for example, the log isn't covered by the main stem, i's next to itThis sideways shift allows as much light to enter as possible. There is no concentration of black, due also to the conical shape of the downstrokes au/-This was important forthe project as a whole and forthe gray areas of the text. Univers doesn't form patches in print, like Akzidenz Grotesk for example, be cause the uppercase leers are only dravn slightly bolder than the lowercase. Tmade myself stencils in order to get the curves, like the o exactly right. remembered just how much time we used to spend draving under Walter Kéich until he was satisfied. would draw ano andcuta stencil out of tracing paperfrom the best quarter, I would then hold the tracing paper against the edge of the table and sand it until the curve was perfect. 1 drow my o using this stencil, both inner and outer shapes. 1 also drew gpqdb the same \way'The inner shapes of hoth round and half roundletters were thesamein principle. What varied, on the other hand, were the curves in the stem connections. As long as the counters were equally round, that was the main thing. Ascender and descender were just added. It doesn't require different letter widths. 1's simply like a knitting mesh, and each square in the mesh is the same. I always stuck to this basic principle. Apart from the ¢, which 1 ‘drew narrower. Because of the white entering it, the narrow c looks as wide as the o rete Magore Grote by Scholer @Giesecke around 1870 the version shown is by Haas sche Shrifigiessee. BORNE: Hatte die Weltgeschichte ein Sachregister, wie ihr Namensverzeich- nis, so kénnto man sie besser beniitzen, News Gothic Venus Grotesk Monotype Grotesque aw Record Gothic Thea shapes ofthe original ‘comparison to Univers, which was oncetved of as one family aaaa aaa aaaa aaaa aaaa aaa %6 ext rveerace ‘Sams sori fos from th fst half af the 200h century have diagonally cut ‘curved ends ~ they look as though they Ihave not been property executed ye Akzidenz Grotesk Reform Grotesque Staticgrotesque _Thefrat sans serif typefece dates back to Willa Casln IVin England, 816 (ee page 5395), Going by he creula O, i can be classified as aeometricin syle. Some twenty years ater English ype ounces started engraving more and more state sotesquer, based on the classical indore shapes Drectangle and oxl-Thocaptalsare ofthe same with optcalyrourdloworstendto havethe dosed form hs Indasial roman ard unc. The she contrast varies great among ely sans ses, sometimes song and Tobagin with sans sri wore jobbing laces For posters, advertisements and peckaging mostly in bold or ble Cendansed type, henys coptals only. Outine sec shadow varetis sppenred ently on lnt@04 efit sans se face with lwerease appeared, Thorowgood's bole ondensed Severe Grotesque’ ® Th le fom jb bing fonts to text fonts would take anther fon years In 870 Seheter& Grosecke in Lips roleasea Bree Mageve Grote and in 8D, Brite Fete Groterk™ De spite the width imped bythe names, both typefaces Rave noma widths Inthe lowercate at ay rate ~and only compared other sonsseris which wore ‘moitly bold condensed. Tho Scholorgrotesqu i tho mother of ll sta groterques. Royal Grotesk by Ferd ‘and Theinharde wos very important the next gen tration It 00, was released n 180, and has beer aa able as Alzidene Grotesk ight from Hermann Berthld indo since 108. ‘ThoBriteh,Gemanand American satcgrctesquetype facas from the th century and ently 20th century that rostral known suchas Alsidan Groveck, Monotype ‘Grotesque, Venus Groteak, Franklin Gothic, News Gothic ste alfeatre the same chagonaly cut curve ends /22 ‘There washouver no consistency inoldtype specimens, hovzontaly and ciagonally cut curve ends alternate, tven within the same character set 2. The ends oe Inconsistent in both upper and loworeasa, This comes ro surprise, because fonts by sevraeferent manu facturers wee sung together to forma famiy’ There Iayot no sign ofthe uiformity that war to become 80 charactors f sare sr dasgn inthe 150s, Iwas this essential aspect that split Swiss designers forover into two camps Er Ruder extlled the advan tages and optical mesturoments of Unversn TM/STM P57 and inthe special edtion V9), (33 and let Sams sri faces from 1956-52 have horizontally cut curved ends sad ery mow beamed am Imation of fact. Univers Helvetica Folio Mercator Recta Permanent The wppercase Mof Maxima by Gert Wunderlich has spect lags Maximastuds exporiment with Univers On the other nd, Some designers for example the Zvi school -togard italongside Berthold Alsidene Groteskor Heletice. Thy deem Universtoosmoothand conformist Tho smogaos forocmer Base studerts Keel Gerstner- wha sighed ‘ eytem for Azidene Grotesk®— and Wolfgang Wein tung in Bosl fem 198, profer th lively, mare archaic charactor of original sans srs. Weingart wits; "Univers became an untouchable, almost sacred netii- Som while Alsisons Grotak ly forgotten in ety ld Iwo appear that Sits ype design had not achieved 1 eat doa in the intervening #9 years when Eri Ruder wrote,“Onehastheimpression that mostof these typefaces werent made toast. ype design often nuns dangerously paral! to fothin cranes ance ross nese of our times Thus weseemore thanafentypotacos ote syle ir datedong botore dheirtochnies! apps: tions. Thishungorfor change and for al things unusual Isa genuine nocd and to some degrce we ought © honour that However inthe face of changing farhons wehove t create somathing rey durble im ou ease a standard typeface.” Foi, Mercato and Neve Haas Grotesk(which was taken wer by D Stempel AG in 16) and named Welvetes) wero released the same time as Univers in 157 Rect followed in 1958 and Permanent in 1942. All of there typafocesheve horisantaly ugcurve endsincommont™ ‘AUnivertie taco called Maxima was leased in East Gerinany in 1970. Univers was ako one of the stating pointe for sae Unie areconcelved version of elvis Invan= Univers war consulted forthe fia igature of thetong s Imade the numerals narrow on purpose, Their character widths vary in the hot met version, but for Lumitype photosetting they're all 10 units. This is most noticeable wi the zero, which is impossible to confuse with the O. My numerals were always narrow than the uppercase alphabet. This is also the case with classic typefaces, apart from ¢ style numerals, of course. On Lumitype we only had lining figures to start with becau ‘there wasn’t enough room on the Lumitype disk. So there was only one 1. Monotype ma ‘an alternative narrow version with less side bearing. ‘There are differences to other typefaces in the Univers individual letters. With Ca ‘alis Monumentalis in mind, T attached the O tail to the exterior shape. I didn’t wa to disturb the counter. The fact that the tail emerges horizontally from the Q is one of characteristics i's in most of my typefaces. The curved indent in the upstroke of th lke in Akzidenz Grotesk ny, was something alien to me. An upstroke is something simy and not so fanciful, horizontal with a bump in it. Accordingly, my 11s simple, like the 7 too. always clearly distinguished symbols, numerals and letters. The same goes fort ‘question mark ay; its curveis cut vertically atthe top, and not horizontally like the num alsand letters. On the printed page it should look more like an exclamation mark and le like a 2. My ampersand rae/was adopted by the European typesetting systems; only wh Linotype took over my Univers for photosetting for the American market did it get swapp for the looped ‘meat-hook ampersand’. The Americans were radical, they didn’t want ampersand at all. The diaereses on 8,6, {1 m2/ were designed with technical consideratio in mind. They're arranged by cap height for reasons of even alignment. The Germans er cised this, because diaeresis and letter are always one unit to them where everything h to be close together. However, I couldn't set the dots any lower because although t x-height for all Lumitype fonts was variable, the position of fiying accents was set t specific height. ‘The best Univers remains the hot metal one cast by Deberny &Peignot. All the ot: adaptations are something of a sorry tale, In 1959 the contract with Monotype was sign ~awise move for Peignot because the expansion of these machines was a worldwide s sation, Stanley Morison made the decision for Monotype. He said that Univers was t least bad sans serif face. In their adverts advertisements they wrote, “Univers - a syat sis of Swiss thoroughness, French elegance and British precision in pattern manuf ture." The version for machine setting from 1960, where I even had some influence, already incoherent. There were technical difficulties, Transferring the 36 unit system Lumitype to the 18 Monotype units didn't work very well.'The small f, the t, the capital they all seem squashed. I would discuss itfor hours with John Dreyfus and the technicia could point out that they needed to be wider than the t, but nothing could be done abo ‘One of the fow inconsistencies of ‘Beenuse his ampersand was lary Unica fsKR ??? a& Compared to Akzidens Grote {leftard Hetwetien right Univers (mile) hax the sieplent 111 777 Univers (below) appears more harmonious and much smoother than the eater sans ser faces like Aetiden Groteak top) GKR GKR Curve endings have Been unified ‘on Univers lowercase they fae cut offhorizoncaly atthe samoheight acegs acegs ‘The heights ofthe eters are not orm in Nesdens Groiak above ‘whereas i Univers, unusully the auvents are aligned. H5alie Hbaliétypographischemonatsblatter typographische monatsblatter _typographische monatsbiatter oes monatsblatter latter ‘monatsblatter = = at ‘1M 1/1961 devoted entirely w Univers A Prager E Ruder and Pllever write abouts conception ‘and production over 60 pages.te Huth at i i hic ala Vl i i a aa i ru i a a ih Hi a Hl Ht i BAH a ll uk i a i | al An HA fa ey H ite 1 LE 1H ra i wuiveesPublicity material by Deberny Pelgnot for Univers designed by Remy Poignot i te 180s anc “60s itshows a pital galaxy influts. Im Alwrtum sind es rohwor Sin und Hol: ‘spitor wurdon die Stoine poliert und des Hole onal: ‘das Metall Ham dazu: heute siod es Beton. Glas Posto ust. wolcho die Konstruktionsmbalichkeiten lunendiich arweitern. — In jedem Zeitter not dos bearboitate Materiel auch der Schrift Rhythmus und Form verlishen: Stein ~ Lapiéarechrit, Merman = Ende 1962 didten die vier erwihnten Grendschaite rit {Karin don maisten Green twiachn 6 und 48 Punt ur Verlogung stehen, und zvrat mit simtichon euro- palschen Akzenten und in dan Kleinkegeiraden mit Tiiehalenden Bruchatlenligatuen. noch: UNG ets ‘ehenden Zillern und Buchstabon und den Oblchen ‘Speiialzsichen, AGSivmys ACIOWoinewayz ASVE Monotype Univers in TM1/1962 (above) and some charactors with 1M 1/1962 Plow) wey univers tt sicher’ corporate design for ‘the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich ted Univers throughout ‘Advertisements by Hane Rudolf “te from the 19608 for Monotype showing the spatial modulation of Ose Texts in iferenc languages appear homogenous in Univer, unlihe Futura (lef) - the rolation of height to asconders and descenders i the key Sie frogen sich, worum es notwendig ist, s0 viele Schriften zur \Verfigung 2u haben. Sie dienen elle zum selben, aber machen die Vielfalt des Menschen aut. Diete Viefa ist wie beim Win. Ich habe sinmol eine Weinkarte studiert mit sechzig Médoc- ‘Weinen aus dem selben Jahr ‘You may otk why so mony diferent typefaces. They cll servethe some purpose but they express mans diversity. Its the some diversity wefind in wine, lonce saw a lst of Médoc wines fet ing sist different Médocs all ofthe same year. Allof them were wines but each was different, Pourquei tantd' Alphabets diférens! Tous servent au méme but, ‘mais aussi@ exprimer la diversié de homme. C'est cette mame iversité que nous retrouvens dons les vins de Médoc. J’ci pu, Lun jour, releversoixonte crus, tous dela méme année. Is agissi cartes de vins, mais ous étaient diférents. 100 rex rveerace Sle ragen sich, warum es notwondig ist 60 viele Schriften zur \Vertigung 2u haben. Sie dienen alle 2um selben, aber machen die Viefaltdes Menschen aus. Diese Viefaltist wie beim Wein, Ich habe einmal eine Weinkarte studiart mit sochzig Médoe- |Weinen aus dem selben Jahr. ‘You may ask why so many ditferent typefaces. They all serve the same purpose but they express mans diversity. Its the same diversity we find in wine. I onca saw a lst of Médoc ‘wines featuring sixty ctferent Médocs allot the same year. All of them were wines but each was different, Pourquol tant 6’ Alphabets différents! Tous sorvent au méme ‘but, mais aussi a exprimer la diversité de homme. C'est cette _méme diversité que nous retrouvons dans les vins de Médoc. 421 pu, un jour, relever solxante crus, tous dela mame année. s'agissaitcertes de vins, mais tous étaient différents.