Designed by Adrian Frutiger, Univers represented an attempt to improve upon nineteenth-century grotesques as well as the more geometrically designed sans serif faces produced in the early twentieth century. Though it was initially produced in Paris, Univers is considered to have its origins in Switzerland. Frutiger was Swiss born and educated. The most distinctive feature of Univers is that it is made up of a family of twenty one variants. All the variants have the same x-height, allowing them to be used in several different ways without conflict on a single page.