Helvetica: The World’s Most Used Typeface

Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface that Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann drew in Switzerland in 1957, first under the name Neue Haas Grotesk. It has even stroke width, a large x-height and horizontal terminals on its letters, and became the most used typeface in the graphic design of the International Style.

Facts

From Akzidenz-Grotesk to Helvetica

In the nineteenth century the first typefaces without serifs appeared, the small cross-strokes at the ends of the letters. They were called grotesques. The most used was Akzidenz-Grotesk, which came in 1898. It was a good and objective typeface but had differences between its variants, and after the war people wanted a more uniform family.

The Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei in Münchenstein, Switzerland, therefore asked Max Miedinger, who was a salesman and designer, to draw a new typeface together with the director Eduard Hoffmann. The result, Neue Haas Grotesk, came in 1957. They wanted to give it a new identity for Germany and the United States and renamed it in 1960 Helvetica, after Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland. The typeface existed at first in metal type for hand setting and later got versions for photosetting and for computers, which meant that it followed every new technology and became a kind of standard for text.

The letters

Helvetica is deliberately neutral. The letters have even stroke width, tight letter spacing and a large x-height, that is, small letters that are tall in relation to the capitals. The terminals on letters such as c, e, g and s are cut horizontally or vertically. That makes the text look steady and ordered.

Compare with Futura, which is based on geometric forms, and Gill Sans, which is more humanist and goes back to handwriting. Helvetica is said to express nothing in particular, which is its strength: it suits everything from hospital signs to company logos.

The International Style

Helvetica became the foremost typeface of the International Typographic Style, or Swiss style, which emerged in the 1950s. The style used grids, ragged-right left-aligned text and photographs instead of illustrations. The ideas were linked to Functionalism and to the rational design of Braun and the Ulm School.

In the 1960s and 1970s the typeface was used by companies and institutions all over the world, such as American Airlines, Lufthansa, BMW and the American government. New York’s subway got Helvetica in its signs after 1989, in a new signage guide. It became a sign that organisations wanted to seem modern, clear and reliable.

Helvetica or Arial?

Arial, which Monotype launched in 1982, resembles Helvetica so much that many confuse them, but it was designed to have the same widths as Helvetica so that one could switch without changing the page breaks. The differences lie in the details. In Helvetica the leg of the R is vertical and curved, in Arial it is slanted. G has a small spur in Helvetica, but not in Arial. And the ends of t, a, c and r are cut horizontally in Helvetica, at an angle in Arial.

In 2007 the director Gary Hustwit made the documentary film Helvetica about the typeface. After that it became even more noticed as design history. Today it is one of the world’s most recognised typefaces, and an example of how a typeface can shape a whole era. Read about its background in Bauhaus and in the guide to Dieter Rams.

How to recognise it

Exercise

How do you tell Helvetica from Arial?