Nibble 19 - Helvetica

 

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References and Further info

Unless your eye was trained, it can be hard to tell the difference between similar-looking typefaces. Sometimes, graphic designers alter them a bit of aesthetic reasons, making it harder to identify. Finding examples of any typeface in use (let alone Helvetica) is hard for the untrained eye. Multiple people (below) have noted its use in various brands and logos, but nowhere else. What about movie posters? Or album covers? And other things that happen to have text on them. This is how I stumbled upon the blog fontsinuse.com. It's a fanatic cataloguing of the use of various typefaces, including Helvetica. 

Of course, another great source was Gary Hustwit's 2007 movie Helvetica.

And yes, I have seen Look Around You.

Helvetica Forever: Story of a Typeface - Victor Malsy, Axel Langer, Indra Kupferschmid (Lars Müller Publishers, 2008, ISBN: 9783037781203)

The Simplicity of Helvetica - (Web Design Blog, 2010)

The History and Evolution of the Font Helvetica - Sarah Cantavalle (PIXARTPRINTING, 2021)

The Univers of Helvetica: A Tale of Two Typefaces - Paul Shaw (PRINT, 2019)

Famous Brands that Uses Helvetica (graphicpear.com)

20 famous logos made with Helvetica - 99designs

Helvetica Font - 40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica | Webdesigner Depot Webdesigner Depot » Blog Archive

10 Best Ever Uses Of Helvetica | Solopress

http://www.klingspor-museum.de/KlingsporKuenstler/Schriftgiessereien/Haas/Haas.pdf

Blue Pencil no. 19—Helvetica and the New York City Subway System - Paul Shaw (2012)

Design is One - Massimo Vignelli, Lella Vignelli (Images Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN: 9781920744526)

Lufthansa + graphic design: Visual History of an Airline - Jens Müller, Karen Weiland (Lars Müller. 2012, ISBN: 9783037782675)

Own Label: Sainsbury's Design Studio, 1962-1977 - Jonny Trunk, Emily King (FUEL, 2019, ISBN: 9780995745582)

When Canadians were first introduced to No Name products - (CBC Archives, 2019)

An A-Z of Type Designers - Neil Macmillan (Laurence King, 2006, ISBN-13 : 978-1856693950)

The Visual History of Type -  Paul McNeil (Laurence King, 2017, ISBN: 9781780679761)

Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface - Lars Müller (Lars Müller Publishers, 2004, ISBN: 9783037780466)

New details about the origins of Akzidenz-Grotesk - Dan Reynolds (Klim Type Foundry blog, 2019)

The Complicated history between Arial and Helvetica  - Ryan Lee (2020)

You can see more details about Neue Haas Grotesk by clicking here.

For more about Helvetica Now, I suggest look at this interview with Charles Nix.

Behind The Process of Helvetica’s 21st Century Facelift -  William Joel (The Verge, 2019)

The Helvetica Scenario

In 1957 Max Miedinger created what later became the most ubiquitous typeface ever created – Helvetica. Been modern looking and neutral in style, Helvetica found many fashionable uses. Been very clear to make out and easy to read, Helvetica became a default typeface for signage. Helvetica became a graphic designer’s “old reliable,” when they were given new assignments. Want a new look without been too radical, just use good old Helvetica. In fact, Helvetica became one of the most overused typefaces ever created, to the point that some graphic designers refuse to use it. To them, Helvetica is the boring old strait-laced Swiss cub scout chief of typefaces. So, if you were a graphic designer, would you use Helvetica?

A Product of Swiss Design

In the 1950s the most interesting graphic design was happening in Switzerland. Influenced by Constructivism, De Stijl and the Bauhaus school, the “Swiss Style” was a more rational approach to graphic design, opposing “frivolous” practises used in the past, especially in propaganda. Its characterized with its use of grid layouts, sans-serif typefaces, narrow left-aligned text columns, and use of photographs instead of illustrations. This style was highly influential to the point it became an “International Style.” It was the need for sans-serif fonts by the likes of Max Bill and Josef Müller-Brockmann that led to the creation of Helvetica.

Created by Haas, owned by Linotype

The Haas Type Foundry of Basel can be traced back to the 16^th century. They relocated to Münchenstein in the 1920s. In 1927 the Stempel Type Foundry of Germany acquired Haas. Stempel had the exclusive relationship with German Linotype and was the only manufacturer of type moulds for Linotype in Europe. Through Linotype, Stempel’s (and later, Haas’) typefaces were distributed in the US from 1925. Eventually, Linotype acquired Stempel in 1985 and shut down Haas in 1989. Linotype was acquired by Monotype in 2006.

NOTE - They are three Linotype companies. There’s the mother company in the US (Mergenthaler Linotype Company), The UK Linotype company, (Linotype & Machinery Ltd), and the German Linotype company (Mergenthaler-Setzmaschinen-Fabrik GmbH). The US company owned shares in the other, but all three operated independently. But they did share designs. It’s German Linotype who owned Stempel, therefore Haas as well.

A Grotesk Creation

Akzidenz-Grotesk was the first truly popular sans serif typeface. Introduced in about 1898 by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin, this typeface found wide use in Swiss Style graphics. Haas needed a sans serif typeface to compete against (mostly German) rival san serifs, including Akzidenz-Grotesk. In 1956 Haas’ president, Eduard Hoffmann, commissioned former employee, now freelance, Max Miedinger to design this typeface. Using Akzidenz-Grotesk as a starting point, Max rationalized it by getting rid of angled ends on the strokes, making them terminate at right angles. If possible, like on “Q,” features were straightened.  But some curves were kept to make characters easier to recognize, such the curved top on “1.” Most horizontal strokes are the same length, with a few exceptions, like the middle strokes in “E” and “F.” But the most noted feature was its big x-height (the height of a small “x” or other lowercase letters with no extensions) and rounded overall dimensions (Akzidenz-Grotesk looks a bit taller at the same width). This new typeface, called Neue Haas Grotesk, was introduced at the “Graphic 57” trade show in June 1957.

“When you take about the design of Helvetica, what it’s all about is the interrelationship of the negative shape … The shapes between characters and within characters …. The Swiss pay more attention to the background so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. … It’s not a letter that’s bent into shape, it’s a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space.” – Mike Parker, Director of Typographic Development, Mergenthaler Linotype USA, 1961-81 (Helvetica, 2007)

A Swiss Name Change

Neue Haas Grotesk was an instant success, quickly becoming a staple in of the Swiss Style. Originally made of hand composition, Hoffman knew that a typeface can have more users if made for machine composition. In June 1959 Hoffman made a deal with Stempel, allowing them to manufacture the typeface for Linotype machines.

In 1960 Mike Parker of Linotype decided to adopt the typeface and asked Stempel designer Arthur Ritzel to redesign it and develop it a family. Then Stempel’s manager Heinz Eul suggested renaming the typeface “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland, as “Grotesk” doesn’t sound good for a product sold in the US. Hoffman wasn’t convinced. There was already and sewing machine manufacturer and an insurance company using “Helvetia.” So, he added a “c” - “Helvetica” – “the Swiss.” This proved genius, as it was more pronounceable by non-Latin speakers.

Initially “Helvetica” only referred to the version made for Linotype. The hand composition one was still marketed as “Neue Haas Grotesk.” But, as machines took over the print industry, printers that still composed by hand fell to niche levels, eroding the market for Neue Haas Grotesk, while Helvetica’s market grew.

Helvetica goes Viral

Helvetica was first available to American and British designers in 1965, just as many companies and organizations were thinking of modernizing their image. When commissioned, designers found Helvetica easily available, leading to many using it. By the 1980s, Helvetica was already viral. But it was about to get more viral. In 1984 Steve Jobs choose to include Helvetica in the library of fonts available on the Apple Macintosh. Designers using a Mac, wanting a nice sans serif font, found Helvetica in the menu – and used it. 

“Governments and corporates love Helvetica because on one hand, it makes them seem neutral and efficient, but also, the smoothness of the letters makes them seem almost human.” - Leslie Savan, Media Writer (Helvetica, 2007)

“…clients would come in and they have piles of goofy old brochures from the ‘50s that have like shapes on them and like goofy bad photographs. They’d have some letterhead that would say Amalgamated Widget on the top in some goofy, maybe, a script typeface above Amalgamated Widget, it would have an engraving showing their headquarters in, you know, Paducah, Iowa with smokestacks belching smoke, you know. And then, you go to a corporate identity consultant, circa 1965, 1966, and they would take that and lay it here and say, “Here’s your current stationary and all it implies and this is what we’re proposing.” And next to the belching smokestacks and the nuptial script in the ivory paper, they’d have a crisp, bright, white piece of paper, and instead of Amalgamated Widget founded 1857, it would just say WIDGCO in Helvetica Medium.” - Michael Bierut, graphic designer (Helvetica, 2007)

Helvetica is great for making logos that have to be used on many products made by the same company. Siegel+Gate designed this logo for 3M in 1977.

Helvetica is the ideal typeface for non-branded goods. In the UK, Sainsbury’s supermarkets used it on their own brand packaging in the 1960s and 70s. In 1978 Canadian food retailer Loblaw introduced its No Name brand of generic products, which used Helvetica on yellow packaging. 

“The one-word AmericanAirlines logo … half-red, half-blue, in plain type … stresses the professional, no-gimmicks attitude of the company in the colours of its home nation. Still in use today, this logo is one of the few worldwide that needs no change.” - Massimo Vignelli, Design is One (2004)

One advocate for Helvetica was Massimo Vignelli. In 1966 he used it for the identity for Knoll furniture and began to use in in New York’s Subway system. In 1967 he used it for American Airlines. In 1968 he used it in Washington’s Metro system. In 1977 he used it for the graphics for US National Parks. In 1998 he used in on Sea Cat Ferries.

In 1963, Otl Aicher, to create brand uniformity, used Helvetica for the corporate identity of Lufthansa Airlines.

Copycats/alternatives

Helvetica had become so popular by the 1980s that some “copycat” typefaces were created as alternatives, mostly to get around licencing. In the 1970s IBM and Xerox were developing the first laser printers and opened bids for typeface producers. Linotype and Monotype responded. Linotype had Helvetica, while Monotype had New Times Roman (a popular typeface at the time) but no Helvetica of their own. Xerox choose Linotype, but Monotype approached IBM with the idea of a Helvetica alternative. In 1982 a 10-person team in Monotype, led by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, took Monotype Grotesque and made a typeface that matched Helvetica’s metrics, becoming a “generic sans serif; almost a bland sans serif”. Originally called Sonoran Sans (after a desert near IBM’s manufacturing facilities in Tucson, Arizona), it was later renamed Arial.

Microsoft helped spread Arial, by making it a default font for Windows 3.1, launched in 1992. The idea that Arial is there just for Microsoft to avoid paying for Helvetica can be disproven by the fact that their logo from 1987 to 2012 used Helvetica. 

Typeface of the Man

“It is ubiquitous. It is a default. It’s air. It’s just air. There’s no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica.” - Erik Spiekermann, graphic designer (Helvetica, 2007)

With many corporations and government agencies using Helvetica in their identity, the typeface became a symbol of big business, lack of imagination, totalitarianism, the military-industrial complex … basically, “The Man.” This led to many graphic designers in the 1970s, especially in the US (the worst offender in Helvetica usage), to reject the typeface and the Swiss Style of graphic design in general. Instead, a more creative brand of “post-modern” graphic design came to be, with no confining grids, a return of illustration and a hippie-later-punk attitude. This is the graphic design world of Paula Scher, Bea Feitler, and Push Pin Studios. 

The Cult of Helvetica

With its wide use, Helvetica is the only typeface that has developed a sort of cult-like worship in popular culture, outside graphic design circles.

In 2007 it became the first typefaces to be subject to its own feature-length documentary film – Helvetica, the directorial debut of Gary Hustwit.

In 2013, design studio Guts & Glory created Helvetica the Perfume. Advertised as “The Scent of Nothing,” it is sold as a 24karet gold printed 2oz bottle of distilled water.

In 2019 Ishar Hawkins created a white monk’s robe with “Helvítica” written down its front in Helvetica. The Icelandic word “Helvíti” means “Hell,” so the creation is a joke about the cult of the typeface.

Corruptions and Restoration

For the people with an eagle eye trained on type, the Helvetica that was mostly used before 2010 wasn’t the same typeface Max created back in 1957. It was because of the quick demand for new versions and the print technology of the time. Haas and Stempel rushed many of Helvetica’s early family members, tweaking older typefaces, creating inconsistences in their design and proportions.

Helvetica was created when text was printed with carved or moulded metal blocks. A set of blocks had to be made for every version of a typeface … and of every size. Originally set up by hand, Linotype machines automated the process by casting lines of text at a time. But to achieve this, every letter of a typeface had to be the same width, no matter what style it was. Helvetica was modified to work with this system, leading to bold letters that looked too narrow and italics looking fat. 

A similar thing happened when Linotype moved to phototypesetting. Their machines had their own width limits that forced the redrawing of all their typefaces to compensate. 

When Helvetica became one of the first typefaces to be digitized, the modifications made earlier were carried through. In 1983, Stempel launched Neue Helvetica (the version used to write these very words). Developed by a team lead by René Kerfante and Wolfgang Schimpf, with consultation with Erik Spiekermann, this was a more unified co-ordinated, ground-up redesign of the Helvetica family. Been digital, designers can resize it by simply altering the size of the graphic. But doing so meant that its curves have to be altered to work at any size, resulting in a more “soulless” Helvetica.  

"digital Helvetica has always been one-size-fits-all, which leads to unfortunate compromises...the spacing has ended up much looser than Miedinger's wonderfully tight original at display sizes but much too tight for comfortable reading at text sizes." - Christian Schwartz

In 2004 Christian Schwartz, who hated what had happened to Helvetica, was commissioned to digitize Max’s original Neue Haas Grotesk. His “restoration” was completed in 2010. So, if you want Helvetica as Max originally made it, look up “Neue Haas Grotesk.” If you use Adobe Creative Cloud, its available in their font library.

In 2019 Monotype launched Helvetica Now. Designed by Jan Hendrik Weber and Charles Nix, this version, taking elements from previous “corruptions,” is designed to be more readable when small on a smartphone screen.

This derivative typeface, Shatter, was designed by Vic Carless for a competition in 1973. The idea behind Shatter was “to obtain a face with action and movement, yet still with each individual character easily identifiable.”