think smart think neutral think helvetica

.1think helvetica

think HELVETICA

think smartthink neutral

.1think helvetica

“When something is constructed as well as Helvetica, it should last for a

couple of hundred years, just like great architecture.”

-Danny van den Dungen-

1. think smartthink neutral

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890?.!,(*”&#@$}>

.2think helvetica

Helvetica is considered as a sans-serif type face. It has been used

widely since first invented on 1957.

It is the most ubiquitous design that represent clarity and

simplicity of modernism. It is neutral and democratic, it can be used in a wide variety scope, be

it as a display text, or a bodytext.


Helvetica was developed by Max Miedinger with Eduard

Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundryin Münchenstein, Switzerland. It was modeled after Akzidenz-Grotesk (thefirst sans-serif) and the design was based on Schelter-Grotesk and Haas’ Normal Grotesk.

It is originally named Neue Hass Grotesk, but then changed to ‘Helvetia’, which is the original Latin name for Switzerland, in 1960 by Haas’ German parent company, Stempel Company. But Eduard Hoffmann disagree, he thought it wouldn’t be appropriate to name a type after a country. He then decided on ‘Helvetica’ which meant ‘Swiss’.

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In 2007, director Gary Hustwit released a documentary, Helvetica, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the typeface.

On 2008 a Helvetica exhibition was held at Laforet Museum in Harajuku, sponsored by Grand Petit Publishing and Asmik Ace Entertainment, with screenings of the film, workshops, and more. The Japanese edition of the film was released during that time.

Also, an exhibition called “50 Years of Helvetica” was dispkayed in Museum of Modern Art in New York City from April 2007 to March 2008.

Helvetica was rated #1 on FontShop Germany’s list “Best Fonts of All Time”.

acknowledgement

.4think helvetica

Lat in , Cyr i l l ic , Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Hindi , Urdu, Vietnamese and even Khmer.

The Chinnese is st i l l developed.

LANGUAGE VERSIONS


USAGE

N e w Y o r k C i t y

Helvetica is a popular choice for commercial wordmark. There are

many company that uses Helvetica for their logo, such as Nestle,

Kawasaki, Evian, BMW, Microsoft, Muji, Tupperware, Mattel, Energizer,

Target, Orange, Lufthansa, Panasonic and many more.

Helvetica is used by Apple Inc. in Mac OS X (as default font for

sans-serif/Swiss generic font family), iOS (previously iPhone OS),

and the iPod. It is also 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.

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority uses

Helvetica for many of its subway signs since 1989. Before that, from

1970 until 1989 the standard font was Standard Medium, another

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.

.6think helvetica

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.

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C h i c a g o

M a d r i dP h i l a d e l p h i a

U n i t e d S t a t e s

Canada’s federal government 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.

Philadelphia’s SEPTA uses Helvetica

exclusively for its signage.

The logo and graphic identity of

the “Metro” (Underground) in

Madrid are Helvetica Regular

and Helvetica Neue.

Helvetica is also used in the United

States television rating system.

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“THE PERSONBEHIND THE

FAME OF HELVETICA”


When he was 16, Max Miedinger

became an apprentice typesetter at

a book printing office in Zurich. After

four years of appren¬ticeship, he

entered the School of Arts and

Crafts, Abendkurse in Zurich.

At 26, he became a typographer in

the ad¬vertising studio of the Globe

department store chain where he

refined his skills for ten years.

From there he moved on to the

Haas Type Foundry.

He was an independent designer

after leaving the Haas Foundry.

Miedinger also designed Helvetica,

Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Inserat,

Helvetica Neue, Helvetica Textbook,

Monospace 821 and Swiss 721.

.8think helvetica

The fact that the typeface is clean-cut and simple means that it can be used as a neutral platform in a wide variety of settings, it is the particular context and content of the messages that convey their meaning.The optimism with which Helvetica was created and taken up worldwide proved it had all the right qualities for rejuvenating attitudes to and uses of design. The great thing about Helvetica is that no matter the size, the spacing or the lewading, you can still see the consistency and that is the beauty of Helvetica. Due to widespread use, Miedinger’s font grew into an anonymous, almost generic-looking font. Because it was embraced and used so often, it became the norm. In fact, the Helvetica font ended up being the default font choice almost from its inception. And when laser printers and desktop publishing software took off, Helvetica had a firm foundation as the sans serif font of choice.

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think neutral

Helvetica means “Swiss” which is appropriate because Helvetica uses the Swiss style of graphic design which relies heavily on sans serif styling and a preference for photography over illustrations.

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helvetica

h e l v e t i c ac a n b e f u n


t h e f a m i l y

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Helvetica Condensed Bold Helvetica Condensed

Black Helvetica Ultra Light Helvetica Ultra Light Helvetica Light

Helvetica Light Italic Helvetica Regular Helvetica Italic Helvetica Medium Helvetica Bold

Helvetica Bold Italic

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33

33

3 33

3 333

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HELVE TICAHELVE

TICAHELVE

TICAHELVE

TICA HELVE

TICA13. think smartthink neutral

HELVE TICAHELVE

TICAHELVE

TICAHELVE

TICA HELVE

TICA .14think helvetica

comparisonHelve t i ca m igh t l ook the same as the res t o f sans-se r i f

t ype face , bu t ac tua l l y He lve t i ca i s un ique in i t ’s own way.

There were other fonts released in 1957 besides Helvetica. Those fonts are Univers and Folio. The three of them are sometimes confused with each other, because each is

based on the 1898 typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk.


.16think helvetica

After Helvetica was released, lots of similar fonts were created and among them are these popular fonts: Arial, Futura, and Gill Sans.


v a r iHelvetica NarrowThe width is between Helvetica Compressed and Helvetica Condensed. It is mathematically squashed to 82% of the original width, resulting in distorted letterforms and thin vertical strokes next to thicker horizontals.

Adobe doesn not allowed such distor-tion and so Helvetica Condensed is recommended instead.

Helvetica LightDesigned by Stempel’s artistic director Erich Schultz-Anker, in conjunction with Arthur Ritzel.

.18think helvetica

Helvetica Textbook1, 4, 6, 9, I, J, a, f, j, q, u, μ, and ¶ are drawn differently from the original version.

Helvetica CompressedDesigned by Matthew Carter.Tighter than Helvetica Condensed. It has a curved tail Q, downward pointing branch in r and tilde bottom £.

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

a n t s


Helvetica Rounded Has rounded stroke terminators.

The family consists: bold, bold oblique, blactk, black oblique, bold condensed, bold outline

fonts were made

Helvetica WorldAlso called Helvetica Linotype.

It supports Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew and Vietnamese scripts. The

family consists of 4 fonts in 2 weights and 1 width, with complementary italics. Latin kerning and spacing

were redesigned to have consistent spacing.

1957

1978

1978

Helvetica InseratUsage : advertising industry.

Similar metric as Helvetica Black Condensed, but more squared

appearance. The strokes in $, ¢ are replaced by non-strikethrough version and the 4 is opened at top

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1983

2009

Neue Helvetica Neue Helvetica has heavier punctuation marks, increased spacing in the numbers and more structurally unified set of heights and widths.

Uses a numerical design classification scheme, like Univers. The family consists of 51 fonts including 9 weights in 3 widths (8, 9, 8 in normal, condensed, extended widths respectively).

Neue Helvetica W1GExtra versions: Latin Extended, Greek, Cyrillic scripts support, including subscript or superscript


Characteristics

Helvetica has small open counter for both uppercase and lowercase ‘c’ and smallcase ‘e’

It has a double-storey ‘a’ with a curvy tail and the eye looks like a tear drop

The terminal of the small f is close to its cross stroke and the lenght

of the terminal and the cross stem is the same

Bracketed top serif of number 1

Wide bowl and rounded off

square tail of R

The uppercase G has a spur and

wide bar a

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aDouble-storey a with a curvy tail and the eye looks like a tear drop

- - - e y e - - -


RWide bowl and rounded off square tail of R

- - - b o w l - -

CceSmall open counter

.24think helvetica

R


FactsIt is a free commision font and so it is used widely.

Helvetica is a type face with titling figures, means

that the letters have consistent height, it is the

exactopposite of text figures (ex: Georgia).

It is best for bodytext, although Helvetica doesn’t

have two-storey “g” it’s still easy to read as a

paragraph because the x-height is quite

tall and the width is quite narrow.

It’s still okay for a display font because the

uppercase letter stands out and suitable to

give a modern futuristic feelings.

.28think helvetica

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. Wim Crouwel

think smart think neutral think helvetica

Documents

years of helvetica

helvetica exhibition

proliferation of helvetica

akzidenz grotesk

think helveticawhen

think helveticalat

standard font

haas normal grotesk