About the Typeface
Helvetica was developed by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland. In the late 1950s, the European design world saw a revival of older sans-serif typefaces such as the German face Akzidenz Grotesk. Haas' director Hoffmann commissioned Miedinger, a former employee and freelance designer, to draw an updated sans-serif typeface to add to their line. The result was called Neue Haas Grotesk, but its name was later changed to Helvetica, derived from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland, when Haas' German parent companies Stempel and Linotype began marketing the font internationally in 1961.
Introduced amidst a wave of popularity of Swiss design, and fueled by advertising agencies selling this new design style to their clients, Helvetica quickly appeared in corporate logos, signage for transportation systems, fine art prints, and myriad other uses worldwide. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984 only further cemented its ubiquity.
i thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's amazing to see how much helvetica is actually out there. A font so typically seen like interstate, it's just recognized as a basic font; yet, when you really look at the font itself, it's designed so beautifully. Helvetica is one of my most used fonts as well. One part I found particulary interesting was the renowned designers within the movie and the interviews of each one discussing how they come to their final decision of the font choice for that particular design solution. This is definitely a valuable asset to a designer's collection of research and material on being a successful designer. Something that you can easily look back on and reference either the font itself, or the several designers that share their views and principles of successful design.
note.this is strange. I was going to publish this post in helvetica, and it's not an available font?
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