1.
From all these experiences the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader.
Adrian Frutiger
2.
Typography must be as beautiful as a forest, not like the concrete jungle of the tenements It gives distance between the trees, the room to breathe and allow for life.
Adrian Frutiger
Typography should be as pristine as a woodland, not like the inorganic labyrinth of tenements. It provides space between the trees, allowing for air to circulate and cultivate life.
3.
The material of typography is the black, and it is the designer’s task with the help of this black to capture space, to create harmonious whites inside the letters as well as between them.
Adrian Frutiger
The fabric of typography is the darkness, and it is the artist's responsibility with the aid of this blackness to seize space, to engender consonant voids within the letters as well as among them.
4.
When I put my pen to a blank sheet, black isn’t added but rather the white sheet is deprived of light. [] Thus I also grasped that the empty spaces are the most important aspect of a typeface.
Adrian Frutiger
When I put my pen to a blank page, rather than adding darkness, the whiteness is taken away. Thus I also understood that the open areas are the most significant element of a font.
5.
Helvetica is the jeans, and Univers the dinner jacket. Helvetica is here to stay.
Adrian Frutiger
'Helvetica is the standard, and Univers the formal attire. Helvetica is timeless.'
6.
The whole point with type is for you not to be aware it is there. If you remember the shape of a spoon with which you just ate some soup, then the spoon had a poor shape.
Adrian Frutiger
The entirety of the purpose behind design is for it to be indiscernible. If you can recall the silhouette of a spoon from which you just enjoyed a bowl of soup, then that spoon must have had an inadequate form.
7.
I am sure in some years from now you will see new posters with just white space and four lines in Garamond.
Adrian Frutiger
I am confident that in the near future, you will witness pristine canvases with only four lines of Garamond font.
8.
If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.
Adrian Frutiger