The Bells
A pairing of Adrian Frutiger’s Versailles and the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe
Table of Contents
Introduction.......4 Biography..........6 Anatomy...........12 Specimen..........14 Colophon.........38 14/21 Roman
Introduction
Hello, welcome to “The Bells.” This is a type specimen book that uses Gothic poetry and architecture to explore the characteristics of Adrian Frutiger’s Versailles typeface.
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Every mark made on these pages is a character from the font family, with the exception of the first window you saw on the cover, which was made to feature solely the iconic pointed serifs. The combined artistry of Frutiger’s type forms and Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Bells (1849) will guide you through this book to experience the story. Enjoy
the bells.
10/16 Roman All captions are 8/17 italic unless otherwise stated
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Biography 22pt Bold
A
Frutiger, who passed away September 10th, 2015, was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of digital typography in the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting eras. Aside from creating a large number of world-famous typefaces, he also produced signets and corporate identities for various publishers and industrial enterprises. drian
Frutiger was born on May 24 , 1928 in Switzerland. After attending school, he was a typesetter’s apprentice from 1944 to 1948 at the printing press, Otto Schlaefli AG. After his apprenticeship, he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule, College of Technical Arts, in Zürich for three years. In 1952, he moved to Paris and became the art director for the Deberny & Peignot Type Foundry. After 10 years of successful work, he left the foundry to open a Graphic Design studio with Andre Gürtler and Bruno Pfäffli in Arcueil near Paris. th
10/15 Roman, Bold
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At a young age, he began experimenting with
stylized handwriting and invented scripts, defying the formal, cursive penmanship taught at Swiss schools. He was also interested in sculpture. His interest in sculpting was not met with very encouraging views by his father and teachers. However, they supported the idea of him going into the print industry. Consequently, he entered the world of print yet kept his love for sculpting alive by incorporating the sculpture designs in his typefaces.
He began his apprenticeship, at the age of
sixteen, as a compositor to the printer Otto Schaerffli, for four years. He also attended school of applied arts, Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich. Here he thrived under the supervision of art instructors like Walter Käch and Alfred Willimann. Frutiger studied monumental inscriptions from Roman forum rubbings, although he primarily focused on calligraphy rather than drafting tools. 14/21 Roman
Frutiger illustrated the essay, Schrift Ecriture Lettering: the development of European letter types carved in wood, which earned him a job offer at the French foundry Deberny Et Peignot by Charles Peignot. His wood-engraved essay illustrations displayed his meticulous skills and knowledge of letterforms. 9/14 Roman, Bold
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Adrian FRUTIGER 88/94 Italic, Roman
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At the foundry, he designed various typefaces including Ondine, Méridien, and Président. Upon witnessing his marvelous work, Charles Peignot assigned Frutiger to convert extant typefaces for the new Linotype equipment, phototypesetting.
Frutiger’s first commercial typeface, Président,
was released in 1954. It was designed in a manner that showcased a set of titling capital letters with small, bracketed serifs. It was followed by Ondine, a calligraphic, informal, script face which translated as Wave in French. Then Méridien appeared in 1955, illustrating a glyphic, oldstyle, serif text face.
The typefaces were inspired by Nicholas Jenson’s
work. Frutiger clearly demonstrated his ideas of letter construction, unity, and organic form in Méridien. In a few years, he designed slab-serif typefaces. Egyptienne, for example, was one of those typefaces that had him commissioned for photocomposition.
In 1968, Adrian Frutiger became an official advisor for D. Stempel AG in Frankfurt, Germany, and therefore also for its successor companies such as Mergenthaler, Linotype, Linotype-Hell and today the Heidelberg subsidiary, Linotype, Bad Homburg. 10/15 Roman, Bold Italic 9/14 Roman, Italic 9/14 Roman/ Italic/ Bold Italic 10/15 Roman/ Italic
Pictured left A portrait of the artist 8/11 Italic, Bold Italic
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During early 1970s, upon the request of the public transport authority of Paris, Frutiger inspected the Paris Metro signage. Moreover, he recreated Univers typeface in a variant font. It was a set of capitals and numbers designed
for white-on-dark-blue backgrounds visible especially under poor lighting. Upon the successful reception of this modern typeface, the French airport authority commissioned him yet again to work for the new Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
He was required to design a way-finding signage alphabet
and in such way that is both legible from afar and from any angle. Frutiger first decided to adapt Univers typeface but then relinquished the idea considering it a little outdated. He took a different approach to the matter and altered the Univers typeface and fused it with organic influences of Eric Gill’s Gill Sans typeface. The resultant typeface was originally titled, Roissy, though it was named after Frutiger in 1976, when it was released for public use.
His computer type OCR-B for automatic reading became
a worldwide standard in 1973. Adrian Frutiger was a lecturer for ten years at the Ecole Estienne and for eight years at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs, both in Paris. In addition, he has given numerous seminars around the world.
From 1963 to 1981, he was responsible for the design and adaptation of typewriter and composer fonts at the IBM World Fair.
10/15 Roman, Bold Italic, Bold 9/14 Roman, Italic, Bold Italic 9/14 Roman, Italic, Bold Italic 10/15 Roman, Bold
Adrian Frutiger was been an active type designer for over thirty years. In this time, he created timeless typefaces such as Avenir, Versailles and Vectora. He also tried to expand and modify these typefaces. He created sixtythree variants of Univers and he reissued Frutiger Next as an extension of Frutiger with true italic and additional weights. He won several awards for his contribution to typography such as The Gutenberg Prize, Medal of the Type Directors Club and Typography Award from SOTA. 15/23 Roman
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Anatomy 22pt Bold
Spine
Terminal
Serif
Descender
Finial
Serifs so sharp they 52pt Roman cap height x-height
baseline
8pt Bold Italic Small Caps
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could draw blood. Counter
Ascender
Bowl
Stem
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fi à Ligature
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157pt Roman
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129pt
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101pt
73pt
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Italic
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Bold Italic
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Roman
Bold Italic
Bold
Italic
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they
could
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Small Caps
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Specimen 22pt Bold
I.
Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight; 11/17 Roman, Bold, Italic
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Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Bells, bells, bells— 11/17 Roman, Italic, Bold Italic
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II.
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! 10/16 Roman, Bold
From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon!
9/12 Roman, Italic
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Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels
9/12 Roman, Italic
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of
the bells!
10/16 Roman, Italic, Bold
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III.
Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
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16/27 Roman, Bold, Italic
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair! 16/27 Roman, Italic
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How they CLANG, and CLASH, and ROAR! What a horror they outpour On the bosom of the palpitating air! 10/12 Bold
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Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; 14/18 Roman
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Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling. How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells— 10/12 Roman, Bold
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Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— 18/26 Bold
In the clamor and the clangor of
the bells!
10/12 Bold
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IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan. 15/26 Roman, Bold, Italic
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And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
All alone, In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone— 13/20 Roman, Italic
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They are neither man nor woman— They are neither brute nor human— They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls 10/14 Roman, Bold, Italic
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A A pĂŚ nd a hi n f A nd s ro m he W e m t r da ith ry he nc th bo be es e so lls , a pĂŚ m ! 14 /1 nd an sw 8 B ol d he of el l ye th s lls e b ; el ls
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells—
Of the bells: Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the throbbing of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells— 12/20 Bold, Bold Italic, Roman, Italic
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To the sobbing of the bells; Keeping time, time, time, As he knells, knells, knells, In a happy Runic rhyme, To the rolling of the bells— Of the bells, bells, bells— To the tolling of the bells,
10/13 Bold Italic
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of the bells, bells, bells,
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bells—
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Bells, bells,
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bells—
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To the moaning and the groaning
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of
the bells.
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Colophon 22pt Bold
Typefaces Versailles LT Std 55 Roman, 56 Italic, 75 Bold, 76 Bold Italic Paper Hammermill 28lb Tabloid Printing Digital printing Bio text www.historygraphicdesign.com
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