Frutiger
noun

- a humanist sans-serif typeface created by Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger for clear wayfinding and signage

- a widely used modern font family known for legibility, open forms and balanced proportions

- a landmark twentieth-century type design that influenced information-focused typography across print and digital media

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WORD ORIGIN & USAGE

The word “Frutiger” is a Swiss-German family name, traced to the Frutigen valley — Frutigen — in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland. The valley name possibly derives from the Old High German frud, meaning "ford" or "river crossing," though the exact root is debated. Whatever its precise origin, Frutiger means something like "person from the place of the river crossing" — a perfectly ordinary Swiss surname that happened to belong to one of the 20th century's most consequential designers.

Adrian Johann Frutiger was born in Unterseen, Canton of Bern, in 1928. He was recruited to Paris in 1952 by the Deberny & Peignot type foundry after his graduation project — a set of hand-engraved wooden plates illustrating the history of European typography — impressed its director, Charles Peignot.

The typeface that bears his name was first called Roissy, after the commune outside Paris where Charles de Gaulle Airport is located. When Linotype released it commercially in 1976, the company named it after its designer — itself an unusual decision, since typefaces are rarely named after living designers. Today, Frutiger's name serves simultaneously as a proper noun (the man), a typeface (the font family), a numbering system (his grid for classifying type weights and widths), and a whole aesthetic movement (Frutiger Aero).

Not many family names end up on the walls of hospitals, airports and national parks in the western world; a tribute to the man who spent a lifetime making things easier to read,... and easier to find.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS



high-x-height type, humanist sans-serif, legibility font, FRUTIGER,  FRUTIGER Next, Neue FRUTIGER,  open-aperture type, Roissy (original name), transitional sans, wayfinding/airport face

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“FRUTIGER is on every U.S. national park sign, yet most people couldn't tell you its name."

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