Avenir paved the way for later humanist geometric sans serifs, such as Freight Sans and Calluna Sans. Who Created the Avenir Typeface? Adrian Frutiger pictured in 2002, towards the end of his period working on Avenir Next alongside Linotype’s in-house type designer Akira Kobayashi. Okay, let's get into the Avenir typeface history. Avenir was created by legendary Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger (1928-2015), who also created Univers and the self-named Frutiger. Frutiger had dabbled in both sculpture and type design from a very young age, and the influence of the strict, formal cursives taught to him in his Swiss schooldays galvanised him to create more modernist and revolutionary alternatives. He worked on Avenir alone, without the help of drafting assistants, and said he designed the typeface with 'human nature in mind'.

Avenir was released in three weights in 1988, which later expanded into a six-weight family.įrutiger often referred to Avenir as his masterpiece, describing it as 'the hardest typeface I have worked on in my life'.

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