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Univers™
A font family tree displays different foundries’ versions, or a foundry’s different cuts, of basically the same typeface design.
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Univers
Univers was designed by Adrian Frutiger on Swiss principles for Charles Peignot at Deberny & Peignot.
Frutiger imposed strict discipline across all elements of the series, from light to dark, extra condensed to extended, a concordance of design that was possible in the foundry type and photocomposition fonts. Any version may be mixed within a word with any other. It may be argued that the design of the most popular central series is limited by strict conformity to little used extremes. If Helvetica gives us the strongest central designs at some sacrifice in uniformity across the series, Univers gives us a uniform series by disciplining the central designs.
Alteration of character widths required by the Monotype caster separates Monotype Univers from the original; the Linotype photocomposition version, designed by Frutiger, has a more even color across the series, achieved by relaxing the original rigid formula for stroke width.
IBM Selectric Univers, designed by Frutiger, is less successful, since it had to be placed on widths tuned for Times Roman.
Monotype claims trademark right in spite of the origin at Deberny & Peignot.
Univers
Some words from Linotype:
The font family Univers is one of the greatest typographic achievements of the second half of the 20th century. The family has the advantage of having a variety of weights and styles, which, even when combined, give an impression of steadiness and homogeneity. The clear, objective forms of Univers make this a legible font suitable for almost any typographic need.
In 1954 the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot wanted to add a linear sans serif type in several weights to the range of the Lumitype fonts. Adrian Frutiger, the foundry’s art director, suggested refraining from adapting an existing alphabet. He wanted to instead make a new font that would, above all, be suitable for the typesetting of longer texts — quite an exciting challenge for a sans-serif font at that time.
Starting with his old sketches from his student days at the School for the Applied Arts in Zurich, he created the Univers type family. In 1957, the family was released by Deberny & Peignot, and afterwards, it was produced by Linotype.
The Deberny & Peignot type library was acquired in 1972 by Haas, and the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) was folded into the D. Stempel AG/Linotype collection in 1985/1989.
Adrian Frutiger continues to do design work with Linotype right up to the present day.
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