Univers

charles peignot commissioned adrian frutiger in 1952 to redesign typefaces for lumitype, one of the first photocomposition processes, then frutiger lobbied to put univers into development in place of europe (deberny & peignot's french licensing of futura). univers was the first typeface released simultaneously as hand-set type, monotype hot type, and phototype, a distribution strategy that let the foundry sell across metal shops and the emerging photocomposition market at once. frutiger sketched a revived grotesque family while studying at the kunstgewerbeschule in zürich, reworking nineteenth-century german grotesques like akzidenz-grotesk.