Helveticans
Wanted to write about my thoughts on Helvetica and found Geoff’s views in Emigre 65 which best reflects what I think. (Geoff Cook, basedesign).
Helvetica turns 50 next year.
Gary Hustwit is making a feature film on Helvetica, with a cast full of stars of typography such as Erik Spiekermann,
Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Michael Bierut, Wim Crouwel, Hermann
Zapf, Stefan Sagmeister, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones,
Experimental Jetset.
Originally known as Neue
Haas Grotesk, Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger as a typeface to compete with Akzidenz Grotesk. It gained popularity through Swiss style - finding its way into signage systems, corporate identites and editorial works. It is now impossible to go anywhere without seeing Helvetica in action - whether it is on the streets or turning on the PC.
When I first started designing, I remember my art director saying "of all the fonts available, why do you have to use Helvetica"? That was the era where Emigre came out with peculiar types, and pilferaging from Adobe’s Font Folio, using relatively unknown sans serif such as Spartan, Vectora etc was perceived to be way better than the old boring Helvetica.
Then came the post-modern movement (also known as the era after David Carson). Almost like a total rejection of Carson gimmicks, designers went back to the slick, clean, methodical utilitarian swiss modernists style.
Helvetica became the hot thing, again. Art directors started saying: "Of all the typefaces, why can’t you just use Helvetica? Keep it simple, minimal and clean!"
Oh well, it’s just a typeface that is better than Arial.
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Sales plug:
The well-acclaimed 256-page book on
Helvetica is back in stock, finally.
Here are some reviews on this book:
Andy Crewdson, Amazon, Linotype.
