In drawing the Avenir ® typeface, Adrian Frutiger sought to both the past and the future for inspiration. His objective was to reinterpret the geometric sans serif designs of the early part of the 20th century in a typeface that would hint aesthetic appeals of the 21st century. He prospered handsomely. In doing so, Frutiger added a little bit of natural humanism to the style, freeing Avenir from the rigid geometric overtones of the earlier styles.
Avenir is used on signs at Dallas Fort Worth and Hong Kong international airports. The city of Amsterdam adopted Avenir as its business typeface in 2003.
The initial Avenir family is made up of designs with progressive weight modifications in order to satisfy the requirements of particular text applications. While the book and lightweight have comparable stroke widths, the book weight is well fit for body text, whereas the light was created for captions and subhead text.
Designer: Adrian Frutiger
