Helvetica

Helvetica

Category	Sans-serif
Classification	Neo-grotesque sans-serif
Designer(s)	Max Miedinger, Eduard Hoffmann
Foundry	Haas Typefoundry
Date released	1957
Re-issuing foundries	Mergenthaler Linotype Company
Design based on	Akzidenz-Grotesk
Variations	Helvetica Neue Swiss 721 BT Helvetica World

Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.^[1]

History

Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) of Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, its design was based on Schelter-Grotesk and Haas' Normal Grotesk. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.^[1]

When Linotype adopted Neue Haas Grotesk (which was never planned to be a full range of mechanical and hot-metal typefaces) its design was reworked. After the success of Univers, Arthur Ritzel of Stempel redesigned Neue Haas Grotesk into a larger family.^[2]

In 1960, the typeface's name was changed by Haas' German parent company Stempel to Helvetica (meaning Swiss in Latin) in order to make it more marketable internationally.

Characteristics

• tall x-height, which makes it easier to read in smaller sizes.
• two-storied a (with curves of bowl and of stem).
• narrow t and f.
• square-looking s.
• bracketed top serif of 1.
• rounded off square tail of R.

Variants

Language variants

The Cyrillic version was designed in-house in the 1970s at D Stempel AG, then critiqued and redesigned in 1992 under the advice of Jovica Veljovic.^[3]

Matthew Carter designed the Helvetica Greek.^[4]

Lebanese designer Nadine Chahine designed Neue Helvetica Arabic.^[5]

(Neue) Helvetica Thai (2012)

Thai font designer Anuthin Wongsunkakon of Cadson Demak Co. created Thai versions of Helvetica and Neue Helvetica fonts.^[6][7] The design uses loopless terminals in Thai glyphs,^[8][9] which had also been used by Wongsunkakon's previous design, Manop Mai (New Manop).^[10]

Initial release included 6 fonts in OpenType Com format for each family in 3 weights (light, regular, bold) and 1 width, with complementary italics. OpenType features include fractions, glyph composition/decomposition.

Helvetica Light

Helvetica Light was designed by Stempel's artistic director Erich Schultz-Anker, in conjunction with Arthur Ritzel.^[11]

Helvetica Compressed

Designed by Matthew Carter, this is a narrow variant that is tighter than Helvetica Condensed. It shares some design elements with Helvetica Inserat, but uses a curved tail in Q, downward pointing branch in r, and tilde bottom £.

The family consists of Helvetica Compressed, Helvetica Extra Compressed, Helvetica Ultra Compressed fonts.

Helvetica Textbook

Helvetica Textbook is an alternate design of the typeface. Some characters such as 1, 4, 6, 9, I, J, a, f, j, q, t, u, μ, and ¶ are drawn differently from the original version.

Helvetica Inserat (1957)

Helvetica Inserat is a version designed in 1957 primarily for use in the advertising industry. With metric similar to Helvetica Black Condensed, the design gives the glyphs a more squared appearance, similar to Impact and Haettenschweiler. Strike with strokes in $, ¢ are replaced by non-strikethrough version. 4 is opened at top.

Helvetica Rounded (1978)

Helvetica Rounded is a version containing rounded stroke terminators. Only bold, bold oblique, black, black oblique, bold condensed, bold outline fonts were made, with outline font not issued in digital form by Linotype.

Helvetica Narrow

Helvetica Narrow is a version where its width is between Helvetica Compressed and Helvetica Condensed. However, the width is scaled in a way that is optically consistent with the widest width fonts.

The font was developed when printer ROM space was very scarce, so it was created by mathematically squashing Helvetica to 82% of the original width, resulting in distorted letterforms and thin vertical strokes next to thicker horizontals.^[12]

OpenType version was not produced by Adobe under the distortion reasoning, and recommended Helvetica Condensed instead. However, in Linotype's OpenType version of Helvetica Narrow, the distortions found in the Adobe fonts are non-existent.

Neue Helvetica (1983)

Neue Helvetica is a reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths. It was developed at D. Stempel AG, a Linotype subsidiary. The studio manager was Wolfgang Schimpf, and his assistant was Reinhard Haus; the manager of the project was René Kerfante. Erik Spiekermann was the design consultant and designed the literature for the launch in 1983.^[13] Other changes include improved legibility, heavier punctuation marks, and increased spacing in the numbers.

Neue Helvetica uses a numerical design classification scheme, like Univers. The font family is made up of 51 fonts including 9 weights in 3 widths (8, 9, 8 in normal, condensed, extended widths respectively), and an outline font based on Helvetica 75 Bold Outline (no Textbook or rounded fonts are available). Linotype distributes Neue Helvetica on CD.^[14] Neue Helvetica also comes in variants for Central European and Cyrillic text.

Neue Helvetica W1G (2009)

It is a version with Latin Extended, Greek, Cyrillic scripts support. Only OpenType CFF font format was released.

The family includes the fonts from the older Neue Helvetica counterparts, except Neue Helvetica 75 Bold Outline. Additional OpenType features include subscript/superscript.

Helvetica World

Also called Helvetica Linotype,^[15] Helvetica World supports Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Vietnamese scripts.

The family consists of four fonts in 2 weights and 1 width, with complementary italics.

The Arabic glyphs were based on a redesigned Yakout font family from Linotype. Latin kerning and spacing were redesigned to have consistent spacing.^[16] John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks designed the Hebrew glyphs for the font family,^[17] as well as the Cyrillic, and Greek letters.^[18]

Neue Haas Grotesk (2010)

Neue Haas Grotesk is the most recent digitisation of Helvetica's precursor, completed by type designer Christian Schwartz in 2004.^[19][20][21] This project, which he referred to as a restoration, was completed in 2010.^[22] The updated design includes a version optimized for on-screen display, as well as a style for printed text, both of which preserve the original essence of the typeface. Improved features include corrected obliques, tabular figures, stylistic updates, and an extended character set.^[23]

Neue Helvetica eText (2011)

It is a version of Neue Helvetica optimised for on-screen use, designed by Akira Kobayashi of Monotype Imaging.

The family includes 8 fonts in 4 weights and 1 width, with complimentary italics (45, 46, 55, 56, 65, 66, 75, 76). OpenType features include numerators/denominators, fractions, ligatures, scientific inferiors, subscript/superscript.^[24]

Similar typefaces

Generic versions of Helvetica have been made by various vendors, including Monotype Imaging (CG Triumvirate), ParaType (Pragmatica), Bitstream (Swiss 721), URW++ (Nimbus Sans), and Ray Larabie (Coolvetica).

Monotype's Arial, designed in 1982, while different from Helvetica in some few details, has identical character widths, and is indistinguishable by most non-specialists. The characters C, G, R, Q, 1, a, e, r, and t are useful for quickly distinguishing Arial and Helvetica.^[25] Differences include:

• Helvetica's strokes are typically cut either horizontally or vertically. This is especially visible in the t, r, f, and C. Arial employs slanted stroke cuts.
• Helvetica's G has a well-defined spur; Arial does not.
• The tail of Helvetica's R is more upright whereas Arial's R is more diagonal.
• The number 1 of Helvetica has a square angle underneath the upper spur, Arial has a curve.
• The Q glyph in Helvetica has a straight cross mark, while the cross mark in Arial has a slight snake-like curve.

"Helv", later known as "MS Sans Serif", is a sans-serif typeface that shares many key characteristics to Helvetica, including the horizontally and vertically aligned stroke terminators and more uniformed stroke widths within a glyph.

Usage

Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Versions exist for the following alphabets/scripts: Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Khmer and Vietnamese. Chinese faces have been developed to complement Helvetica.

Helvetica is a popular choice for commercial wordmarks, including those for Societe Generale, 3M, BMW, ECM, Jeep, J. C. Penney, Kawasaki, Lufthansa, McDonald's, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Panasonic, Target, current logo of Texaco, and Verizon Wireless.^[26]

Apple Inc. has used Helvetica widely in iOS (previously iPhone OS), and the iPod. The iPhone 4 uses Helvetica Neue Ultra Light.^[27]

Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica, and NASA uses the type on the Space Shuttle orbiter.^[1] Helvetica is also used in the United States television rating system. The Canadian government also uses Helvetica as its identifying typeface, with three variants being used in its corporate identity program, and encourages its use in all federal agencies and websites.^[28]

New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) uses Helvetica for many of its subway signs, but Helvetica was not adopted as the official font for signage until 1989. The standard font from 1970 until 1989 was Standard Medium, an Akzidenz-Grotesk-like sans-serif, as defined by Unimark's New York City Transit Authority Graphic Standards Manual. The MTA system is still rife with a proliferation of Helvetica-like fonts, including Arial, in addition to some old remaining signs in Medium Standard, and a few anomalous signs in Helvetica Narrow.^[29]

Washington's WMATA uses Helvetica on its signage for Metrorail. The Chicago Transit Authority uses Helvetica on its signage for the Chicago 'L'. The former state owned operator of the British railway system developed its own Helvetica-based Rail Alphabet font, which was also adopted by the National Health Service and the British Airports Authority. Additionally, it was also adopted by Danish railway company DSB for a time period.^[30] North American rail company Amtrak used Helvetica typeface on its now defunct "pointless arrow" logo. New Brunswick and British Columbia provincial highways uses the typeface on the numbers on the highways.

CNN used Helvetica as its main font for much of its history; they recently switched to Univers. The NBA on TNT used Helvetica from 2002–05; NBA on ABC used the font during the 2003-04 NBA season. CBS Sports programs have been using Helvetica since 2006, particularly during its broadcasts of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and the NFL. The U.S. adaptation of The Office uses Helvetica in its graphics. UK television channel, Channel 5 (UK) used the typeface when it rebranded in 2002 as "five". The channel retired the logo in 2008. The PBS 1970 - 1971 Logo uses Helvetica Bold.

Media coverage

In 2007, Linotype GmbH held the Helvetica NOW Poster Contest to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the typeface.^[31][32] Winners were announced in January 2008 issue of the LinoLetter.

In 2007, director Gary Hustwit released a documentary film, Helvetica (Plexifilm, DVD), 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",^[33] which celebrated the many uses of the typeface. In 2011 the Disseny Hub Barcelona displayed an exhibit called Helvetica. A New Typeface?. The exhibition included a timeline of Helvetica’s consolidation over the last fifty years with a view to understanding its role in the history of design, as well as its antecedents and its subsequent influence. The itinerary started out with a selection of local works, highlighting the top-quality design of current and past creations whose common denominator is their use of Helvetica.^[34]

In 2011, one of Google's April Fool's Day jokes centered around the use of Helvetica. If a user attempted to search for the term "Helvetica" using the search engine the results would be displayed in the font Comic Sans.^[35]

Awards

Helvetica was rated number one on FontShop Germany's list, "Best Fonts of All Time".^[36]

Notes

References

• Lawrence W Wallis. Modern Encyclopedia of Typefaces 1960-90. Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd: 2000. ISBN 0-85331-597-1.
• Müller, Lars; Malsy, Victor (Ed.); Langer, Axel; Kupferschmid, Indra: Helvetica forever. Story of a typeface. Lars Müller Publishers 2007. ISBN 978-3-03778-121-0

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Helvetica.

• Typophile Typowiki: Helvetica
• HELVETICA site for Independent Lens on PBS
• linotype.com: Helvetica Typeface Family overview & related Information
• Helvetica documentary site
• All About Helvetica Font
• Arial vs Helvetica
• MoMA Exhibition (2007), 50 Years of Helvetica
• Helvetica at 50 — BBC News article
• The Helvetica Hegemony: How an unassuming font took over the world — article in Slate, published May 25, 2007
• Helvetica: The little typeface that leaves a big mark — Herald Tribune article on the 50 years of Helvetica
• Photo of Helvetica wallpaper
• Alternatives to Helvetica at fontfeed.com and typefacts.com
• Helvetica: Old and Neue
• A lecture on 'Helvetica' by Experimental Jetset on occasion of "The Malady of Writing" exhibition at the MACBA, Barcelona
• Helvetica forever (book, exhibition, products)
• The Helvetica Story and Complete Collection