In history there have been many people who have contributed and influenced the graphic design world that we know today. To compare and contrast two of the most influential designers, Adrian Frutiger and Piet Zwart, will provide a better understanding of their many accomplishments. Frutiger and Zwart were both a typographer, graphic designer, and teacher. Yet Frutiger was also a type designer and illustrator while Zwart was also a photographer and a interior designer. (1).
Swiss typographer, Adrian Frutiger, (1928-present) not only created one of the most successful and widely used typefaces in history, but he also created a standard of excellence in type design. (2) Frutiger's work has concentrated mainly on the design of printing types and signage systems, but he has also created free forms and even developed visually pleasing characters for optical recognition. (3) His greatest accomplishment was the design of the phenomenally successful type face family, "Univers." It was introduced in 1957 both for photo and hot metal composition and almost every typesetting system in the world licensed it for use. (4) Frutiger created a numbering system to indicate weight and width in the twenty-two members of the Univers family. The range of typeface options available in Univers delighted most all typographers. (4) Frutiger has just recently digitally recreated the Univers family, bringing the total to fifty-eight fonts. (5).
Piet Zwart (1885-1977) was a Dutch typographer, photographer, graphic designer, and a interior designer. (1) Zwart was a part of an international movement after World War I to give a new form to typography. His goal was not so much to improve typography, but to reform a branch of art which had lost its distinction. (6) In 1923, Zwart was introduced to the cable manufacture N.V. Nederlandsche Kabelfariek (NKF). He worked with Nederlandsche Kabelfariek until 1933, during those ten years he produced two hundred and seventy five advertisements and the publication "Serkstroom.
In 1770, while expanding eastwards the whites ran across Bantu tribes for the first time by the coast of the Great Fish river. The Dutch East Indian Company held just a nominal authority over these colonials, whose population was rapidly increasing. They were rather far away from Cape Colony and alr...