Frutiger – Erfan Khaki

Frutiger Type Specimen

Historically, a type specimen is a booklet that demonstrates the range of a typeface, applied to headlines and text in a variety of sizes. Type specimens have existed for centuries to help designers pick a font for a project. Type specimens today can be wildly flamboyant or classical in their approach.

Event:
Typography

Timeframe:
Winter 2022

Project Type:
Print Design, Graphic Design, Typography

Tools:
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe After Effects

Objective

A 12-page (Front/back covers, 8 spreads) specimen book and a 20 seconds motion animated video which advertises Frutiger typeface to an audience of graphic and web designers.

Creative Process

Research

Researched the Frutiger typeface and its usage in the real world.
Thumbnails

3 rounds of thumbnails to try different compositions.
Motion Sketches

Tried different layouts and scenes for the animation.
Motion storyboards

Draw the final story board before execution.
Final

Final Booklet and motion.

Research

In 1968, a designer named Adrian Frutiger was selected to design a typeface for Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. His goal was to design a new sans serif font for passengers to be easily readable and recognizable from a distance. “The resulting font was in accord with the modern architecture of the airport”. The typeface was originally released to the public in 1976. Although the typeface was originally designed for the large scale at the airport, the full family has a “warmth and subtlety that have, in recent years, made it popular for the smaller scale of body text in magazines and booklets”.

Frutiger is a humanist sans serif typeface designed for outstanding legibility for the readers reading in different lightings, angles, and long distances. It has 14 weights which makes it useful for a variety of purposes such as airports, big agencies and publication design. “The Frutiger family is neither strictly geometric nor humanistic in construction; its forms are designed so that each individual character is quickly and easily recognized. Such distinctness makes it good for signage and display work”.

Frutiger has been revised and improved so many times since the original release in 1976. Additional versions such as Frutiger Arabic, Next, Neue, and Greek versions were released in the late 1900s which made it very popular around the world. For example, Frutiger has since been used in airports, government facilities and corporations in different countries such as: British Royal Navy in the UK, Canada, and the United States of America. Not only Frutiger is used in many circumstances, it has also won many recognizable awards throughout the years. For example, In 2008 Frutiger. was the fifth best-selling typeface of the Linotype foundry.

Concept

To design a type specimen booklet using an airport theme which advertises Frutiger typeface to designers. The booklet takes the readers to a journey as they start with the first page. Readers will learn about the history of the typeface as well as the usage and different weights and all the things they need to know to choose a typeface.