Helvetica: history of one of the most beloved fonts for brands
There are those who love it and those who hate it: Helvetica is one of the most widely used fonts in the world, both in advertising and publishing and in urban signage. To what does it owe its success and such pervasive use, and how has it changed over the years?
In this article we will start from its invention, back in 1957, to trace the stages that have led it, through various restyling, to become the typeface of choice for many international brands.
The origins of the Helvetica font
As its very name suggests, Helvetica was born in Switzerland, when Eduard Hoffmann, director of the Haas foundry in Münchenstein, decided to commission freelance designer Max Alfons Miedinger to create a new typeface. Hoffmann’s intention was to counter the success of the Akzidenz Grotesk, the typeface launched by rival printer H.Berthold AG.
So it was that in 1957 Miedinger proposed a new character set, christening it the Neue Haas Grotesk. It was a sans serif (graceless) font with a linear, essential and elegant design, which precisely because of its lack of frills was very readable.
From a technical point of view, the Neue Haas Grotesk had certain peculiarities, such as the balance between the negative (white) space surrounding the letters and that of the lines composing them. It also always developed in a horizontal or vertical direction, never diagonally, for a “bold” yet neutral visual effect.
Mike Parker, the man who changed the destiny of Helvetica
It was 1959 when Mike Parker became director of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. The U.S. company markets the Linotype letterpress, the first to enable automatic type line composition. Charged with expanding the company’s library of proprietary fonts, from 1959 to 1981 Parker managed to add nearly a thousand, in many cases adapting existing fonts to the technical requirements of Linotype machines.
In 1960 Parker also chose to adopt the Neue Haas Grotesk, commissioning Arthur Ritzel, designer at D. Stempel AG – a German partner of the Lynotype Company – to redesign and develop the font family. The new font is renamed Helvetica, from the Latin Helvetia, Switzerland.
From then on, it would become an icon of Swiss design, considered at the time to be a model of understated elegance and functionality, and would appear on a great many European and U.S. billboards and advertising posters in the 1960s and 1970s.
New York subway map.
In the late 1960s, Helvetica was chosen by designers Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda to create the new New York subway signage and the Graphic Standards Manual, one of the most celebrated visual identity manuals in the history of graphic design. The use of this font will remain one of Vignelli’s trademarks-a choice that will greatly add to the font’s international reputation.
The first redesign and entry into the digital world
1983 saw the release of Neue Helvetica, an updated version of the font by the Linotype graphic studio. More spacing between numbers and more prominent punctuation marks are introduced in order to improve readability.
The following year, Steve Jobs decides to introduce it as one of the fonts featured within the first Macintosh, paving the way for the spread of the digital version of the typeface.
The font most loved (and hated) by designers
What was the reason for the success of this typeface? Undoubtedly its versatility, modern appearance, and understated elegance, making it suitable for both an advertising poster and an instruction manual, as well as an art catalog.
On the other hand, its ubiquitous presence in the world of publishing and advertising graphics has attracted various criticisms, and it has become synonymous with standardization. One of its detractors is Bruno Maag, a Swiss type designer who owns Daalton Maag, the London-based foundry that has made fonts for companies such as Lush, Nokia, and HP.
In an interview published on the Eye on Design website, Maag criticizes the ubiquity of the font: “Designers use Helvetica out of laziness. And also because it is a safe choice. The result is a homogeneity present in all the brand identity graphic designs you see around.”
Indeed, this typeface is still used in the communication campaigns of many companies, as well as in their logos. Here we mention just a few names among many: Lufthansa, Nestlé, Panasonic, Microsoft, and famous automakers such as BMW and Jeep. In addition, its digital version is employed in the user interfaces of social platforms Facebook and Instagram.
In 2007, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its invention, the font became the protagonist of a documentary film entitled “Helvetica” directed by Gary Hustwit. In the same year, the exhibition “50 years of Helvetica” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was dedicated to it.
The Future of Helvetica
In an article published in Adweek magazine in 2012, Steve Hicks, then creative director of the U.S. advertising agency McGarryBowen, prophesied a further increase in the use of Helvetica. According to Hicks, the font’s presence on one of the world’s most popular social networks, Facebook, would pave the way for its increasing use in advertising, leading to Helveti-Topia, an era in which the typeface would dominate unchallenged in the advertising industry.
Although fortunately Hicks’ prophecy has not come true and creatives around the world continue to draw on different fonts for their projects, it seems that Helvetica is set to remain on the scene for some time to come. In fact, in 2019, Monotype Studio commissioned a redesign of the font, initiating the most radical overhaul since back in 1983.
Helvetica Now is available in 3 versions: Micro for small screens, Text for regular text, and Display for larger formats. Each size is offered in weights ranging from fine line to extra black, for a total of 48 weights. Font shapes appear more spaced out and readable even on small electronic devices.
The release of this new version makes us think that the future of Helvetica is still long and all… “to be written”!