History of Frutiger Aero
This section is a brief explanation of the history of Frutiger Aero, from its rise to its decline, and the sub-aesthetics that derived from it. I have done my best to be accurate, however, if you think something is incorrect, please let me know by contacting me or sending a message on the Guestbook. Any help is appreciated.
(2001-2005) Beginning
At the start of the new millennium, thanks to better hardware, computer user interfaces were becoming more elaborate than ever before. On March 24, 2001, Apple released Mac OS X 10 with a new user interface called "Aqua", which made heavy use of reflection effects and translucency.
As indicated by its name, it was based on the theme of water. Its first appearance in a commercial product was in July 2000 with the release of iMovie 2. Aqua is considered as a precursor to Frutiger Aero, as it has also been categorized as part of the Y2K Futurism era.
Another precursor to Frutiger Aero is the Windows XP default wallpaper "Bliss", a green hill with a bright blue sky that almost feels dream-like. It was photographed by Charles O'Rear in a vineyard in Sonoma County, California.
The Windows Aero visual style made its first appearance in 2005 in Windows Vista build 5048, replacing the previous Luna theme used in Windows XP. Also worth noting, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 also featured an interface closely resembling Aero. This is when the Frutiger Aero aesthetic really started.
Here's a few words on Windows Vista build 5048 and the use of Aero:
"The user interface has seen a gradual overhaul over previous builds; although parts of the interface are largely similar to its predecessor, a number of changes can be observed across various surfaces. The Windows Aero visual style, which sports a design featuring shiny metallic and glass surfaces, has been added to the operating system; it is the default system theme throughout the rest of Vista development and would act as a complete replacement for the legacy Luna visual style, initially present as a development placeholder in builds up to 5059 (vbl_wcp_avalon). ClearType anti-aliasing is now enabled across all surfaces by default." [quote]
The Windows Vista Developer Center also defined Aero this way:
"What is AERO? AERO stands for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open and is the user experience guidelines for Windows Vista, governing the look and feel of the operating system. These guidelines express not just the way the pixels are drawn, but how the user interacts with the system and the feelings it should evoke. These guidelines, and the AERO user interface, are the result of years of design and user research by Microsoft." [quote]
Longhorn build 5048
Mac OS X 10.0 (2001)
(2006-2009) Golden Age
In 2006, Frutiger Aero-style stock photography is flourishing. This time period is when a lot of the iconic images would be created. This can be seen in the Korean Asadal website, who made thousands of such images.
Another notable example is the Sozaijiten (素材辞典), which translates to Material Dictionary, a Japanese-produced collection of stock images made by Image Navi Corporation, spanning over 246 volumes on various subjects, some of which contained Frutiger Aero imagery, often depicting nature and cities merging together, reflecting a vision of a more optimistic, eco-friendly future.
On January 30, 2007, Windows Vista, after a troubled development and numerous delays, was officially released to the public with the Aero visual style. The new look was pretty demanding on the hardware of the time, and a lot of computers not reaching the minimum requirements were sold with Vista pre-installed, resulting in a slow, laggy experience for a lot of people.
There were also other technical issues within the operating system, and other annoyances that frustrated users. This was fixed later on in the service packs, but by then, the damage to its reputation was already done. Microsoft showed this in the Mojave experiment, which showed frustrated Windows XP users trying the patched Vista, and being impressed.
Windows 7, an improved, more polished version of Vista, was released on October 22, 2009, and was a huge success. It fixed many of the issues and frustrations users had with Vista, and by that time, users had more capable hardware. It is still regarded by some as the best version of Windows, because of its beautiful interface, simplicity, and user-friendliness.
During this time, most of the big tech corporations had embraced the new design aesthetic, and it was everywhere; advertisements, television, stock imagery, websites, media, and tech gadgets of all sorts. An example is the iDog robot dog, which featured the ability to receive sound input from an MP3 player or iPod and dance to the music's rhythm.
The seventh generation of video game consoles also started using Frutiger Aero designs for their graphical user interfaces, the Wii being the most famous example of it.
When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, it stuck with the skeuomorphic approach in an attempt to provide users with familiarity. Skeuomorphism being a design concept of making items resemble their real-world counterparts.
"The skeuomorphic design approach was a hugely debated topic inside Apple back in those days. Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstal pushed for the design direction, while legendary industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple top-level executives were against it, according to Fast Company that spoke to several Apple designers." [quote]
Windows Vista (2007)
Wii (2006)
(2012-2013) Downfall
In 2012, smartphones and tablets were more popular than ever before, and the future of traditional computers was unknown. Microsoft saw this, and wanted to accommodate this growing user base in their next operating system: Windows 8.
The new OS would look completely different from Windows 7, ditching the Aero design language for "Metro", which featured a flat and minimalistic look. The desktop environment was composed of tiles, to make it easier to navigate for touch-based devices. The OS was called "confusing" by most PC users, used to a more traditional interface. There was still an option to show the regular desktop instead of the tiles, but the start button was absent.
Due to backlash, Microsoft would later bring back the start button with the release of Windows 8.1 in August of 2013, but most people did not want to use it, choosing to remain on Windows 7. Despite this failure, the industry started to shift towards flat design and drop Skeuomorphism and other more elaborate designs.
The Wii U, released on November 18, 2012 by Nintendo, was the last game console to feature a Skeuomorphic interface. But due to a number of factors, it would be a commercial failure, only selling 13 million units.
In 2012, Scott Forstall, who led the original software development team for the iPhone and the iPad, was fired, and Jony Ive and others took over the design of iOS. On September 18, 2013, Apple released iOS 7, which had a new look, featuring sharper, flatter icons, and slimmer fonts. By that time, most users were familiar with their phones, so Skeuomorphism felt less useful and stopped being used.
"Apple's head of design Jony Ive notes that the new icons feature a new palette of colors — gone are the bold, primary colors of old, replaced by modern shades and tones. Flat design is very prominent in iOS 7 — everything from the buttons to the switches to the chrome surrounding apps has been modernized and flattened. Apple says that the new design makes your phone "appear bigger" because each app makes better use of the screen real-estate available to it. The calendar, phone, messages, Game Center, and others have all lost their skeuomorphic designs and now feature clean, flat layouts. The signal bars in the upper left corner of the phone have also been replaced with a series of dots." [quote]
He also made this comment about it: "There is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation - it's about bringing order to complexity. iOS 7 is a clear representation of these goals. It has a whole new structure that is coherent and applied across the entire system." [quote]
iOS 6 to iOS 7 (2013)
Windows 8 (2012)
(2017) CARI defines Frutiger Aero
In 2017, Sofia Lee (known mononymously as Sofi) from CARI, which stands for "Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute", an online community dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now, coined the term "Frutiger Aero", they define it as "the corporate tech aesthetic popular from approximately 2005 through 2013."
With prominent motifs being (I quote):
Skeumorphism in UI/UX design
Glossy design
Frutiger/humanist sans-serif typefaces
Tertiary color palettes
Glassy/transparent materials
Photographs of aurora borealis
Bokeh photography
Macro photographs of grass
The first part of the name "Frutiger" is derived from the Frutiger typefaces, designed by Adrian Frutiger, and the second part "Aero" is derived from the Windows Aero design interface.
There are also other sub-aesthetics of Frutiger Aero that the community has defined, such as Frutiger Eco, Frutiger Aurora, Dark Aero (Frutiger Ego), Technozen, Helvetica Aqua, and more (see picture below).
Frutiger Aero vs Y2K
Frutiger Family and other aesthetics
(2022) Revival
Frutiger Aero regained popularity around 2022 thanks to social media, people that were kids when it was popular, now being adults, are returning to the aesthetic, but also younger people that were not around still enjoy it.
It will probably never become mainstream again as a design trend, however nothing prevents you to create cool artworks, wallpapers, music, and theme your computer to look Frutiger Aero, to celebrate the good old days, or simply for the love of art.
Join these cool places to find other people that like the aesthetic: