Helvetica
Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th-century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-20th century. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths, and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high x-height, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, solid appearance.
Developed by the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei of Münchenstein, Switzerland, its release was planned to match a trend: a resurgence of interest in turn-of-the-century "grotesque" sans-serifs among European graphic designers, that also saw the release of Univers by Adrian Frutiger the same year. Hoffmann was the president of the Haas Type Foundry, while Miedinger was a freelance graphic designer who had formerly worked as a Haas salesman and designer.
Originally named Neue Haas Grotesk, it was soon licensed by Linotype and renamed Helvetica in 1960, which in Latin means, from Helvetia, capitalising on Switzerland's reputation as a centre of ultra-modern graphic design.
History
The first version of the typeface was designed in by Max Miedinger with art direction by Eduard Hoffmann. His goal was to create a new sans-serif typeface that could compete in the Swiss market as a neutral face that should not be given any additional meaning. The primary influence on Helvetica was Akzidenz-Grotesk from Berthold; Hoffman's scrapbook of proofs of the design shows careful comparison of test proofs with snippets of Akzidenz-Grotesk. Its 'R' with a curved tail resembles Schelter-Grotesk, another turn-of-the-century sans-serif sold by Haas. Wolfgang Homola comments that in Helvetica, "the weight of the stems of the capitals and the lower case is better balanced" than in its influences.Attracting considerable attention on its release as Neue Haas Grotesk, Stempel and Linotype adopted Neue Haas Grotesk for release in hot metal composition, the standard typesetting method at the time for body text, and on the international market.
In, Stempel changed the typeface's name to Helvetica, to make it more marketable internationally; it comes from the Latin name for the pre-Roman tribes of what became Switzerland. Intending to match the success of Univers, Arthur Ritzel of Stempel redesigned Neue Haas Grotesk into a larger typeface family. The design was popular: Paul Shaw suggests that Helvetica "began to muscle out" Akzidenz-Grotesk in New York City from around summer 1965, when Amsterdam Continental, which imported European typefaces, stopped pushing Akzidenz-Grotesk in its marketing and began to focus on Helvetica instead. It was also made available for phototypesetting systems, as well as in other formats such as Letraset dry transfers and plastic letters, and many phototypesetting imitations and knock-offs were rapidly created by competing phototypesetting companies.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Linotype licensed Helvetica to IBM, Xerox, Adobe, and Apple, guaranteeing its importance in digital printing by making it one of the core computer fonts of the PostScript page description language. The phototype and digital versions were derived from the 12-point metal type. This led to a version being included on Macintosh computers, with Arial included with Microsoft Windows computers. The rights to Helvetica are now held by Monotype Imaging, which acquired Linotype; the Neue Haas Grotesk digitisation was co-released with Font Bureau.
Characteristics
- Tall x-height, which makes it easier to read at a distance.
- Tight spacing between letters.
- An oblique rather than italic style; this is a common feature of almost all grotesque and neo-grotesque typefaces.
- Wide capitals of uniform width, particularly obvious in the wide 'E' and 'F'.
- Square-looking 's'.
- Bracketed top flag of '1'.
- Rounded off square tail of 'R'.
- Concave curved stem of '7'.
- Two-storied 'a', a standard neo-grotesque feature, and single-storey 'g'
Usage examples
Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Versions exist for Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Khmer, and Vietnamese alphabets. Chinese faces have been developed to complement Helvetica.Helvetica is a common choice for commercial wordmarks: in 2007, the BBC remarked that a list of users "would fill this page". Famously, Helvetica was used in the title sequences for the James Bond films starting with Live and Let Die through to Die Another Day.
Helvetica has been widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica. The Canadian government also uses Helvetica as its identifying typeface and encourages its use in all federal agencies and websites. Helvetica is commonly used in transportation settings. New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority adopted Helvetica for use in signage in 1989. Helvetica is also used in the Washington Metro, the Chicago 'L', Philadelphia's SEPTA, and the Madrid Metro, and in some airports like Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix Sky Harbor, and Vancouver.
The typeface was displaced from some uses in the 1990s to the increased availability of other fonts on digital desktop publishing systems, and criticism from type designers including Erik Spiekermann and Martin Majoor, both of whom have criticised the design for its omnipresence and overuse. Majoor has described Helvetica as 'rather cheap' for its failure to move on from the model of Akzidenz-Grotesk.
Media coverage
An early essay on Helvetica's public image as a typeface used by business and government was written in 1976 by Leslie Savan, a writer on advertising at the Village Voice. It was later republished in her book The Sponsored Life.In 2007, Linotype GmbH held the Helvetica NOW Poster Contest to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the typeface. Winners were announced in the January 2008 issue of the LinoLetter.
In 2007, director Gary Hustwit released a documentary film, Helvetica, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the typeface. In the film, graphic designer Wim Crouwel said, "Helvetica was a real step from the 19th century typeface... We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn't have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface." The documentary also presented other designers who associated Helvetica with authority and corporate dominance, and whose rebellion from Helvetica's ubiquity created new styles.
From April 2007 to March 2008, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City displayed an exhibit called "50 Years of Helvetica". In 2011 the Disseny Hub Barcelona displayed an exhibit called Helvetica. A New Typeface?. The exhibition included a timeline of Helvetica over the last fifty years, its antecedents and its subsequent influence, including in the local area.
In 2011, one of Google's April Fools' Day jokes centred on the use of Helvetica. If a user attempted to search for the term "Helvetica" using the search engine, the results would be displayed in Comic Sans.