Adrian Frutiger was born in Unterseen near Interlaken, Switzerland, in 1928. In Interlaken he served an apprenticeship as a compositor at Schäfli, a printer. Then Adrian Frutiger went on to study sculpture, graphic design, and illustration at the Zurick Kunstgewerbeschule from 1948 until 1951. From 1952 Adrian Frutiger worked for the Deberny & Peignot type foundry in Paris. With André Gürtler and Bruno Pfäffli, Adrian Frutiger established a graphic design studio in the Paris suburb of Arcueil in 1962. Adrian Frutiger freelanced as a typographer, designing typefaces and logos, as well as the corporate image of numerous firms. Adrian Frutiger's governing principle in his work as a typographer was the legibility of typeface, which was supposed to transmit content efficiently, but he did not neglect beauty as a criterion in typeface design. In 1957 Adrian Frutiger Univers, a linear Antiqua typeface without serifs. Univers was supposed to be as reticent and neutral as possible so that it would be universal in application. Nowadays it is one of the most widely used standard typefaces. In 1969 Adrian Frutiger designed Frutiger lettering for the signage system for Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris. It is viewed as exceptionally easy to read because it is so clear. Adrian Frutiger designed it deliberately to be rapidly recognizable and readable. Motorway signs in France and Switzerland are also in Frutiger. Adrian Frutiger spent much of his life in Paris, where, in addition to working as a typographer, he also taught typography and illustration for some years at the École Estienne and the École Nationale Superieure des Arts Décoratifs. In 1978 Adrian Frutiger's book "Der Mensch und seine Zeichen" was published, a standard work on typography. Adrian Frutiger exerted a formative stylistic influence on the Swiss school of typography and was one of the greatest typographers and typeface designers of the 20th century. In the course of his career, Adrian Frutiger developed more than one hundred and seventy typefaces. Many of them have become standard fonts that are now in daily use and shape our reading habits. Since 1992 Adrian Frutiger has again lived in Switzerland.