Typography Poster

Helvetica

Designer – Max Miedinger, assisted by Eduard Hoffmann

Category – Sans-serif

Classification – Neo-grotesque sans-serif

Foundry – Hass Type Foundy

Date released – 1957

Helvetica

Helvetica is a commonly used type face that was developed in 1957 by Swiss designer Max Miedinger with the assistance of Eduard Hoffman. Miedinger and Hoffmann designed a neutral typeface with high clarity with no real meaning in its form with the wide variety of uses in signage.

During this period, Hoffmann was the president of the Haas Type Foundry, while Miedinger was a graphic design freelancer, where the two had formerly worked together as Haas salesman and designers.

The sans-serif typeface is a neo-grotesque design that was based on the 19^th century Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry in 1896 which became one of the first sans-serif typefaces to be widely used. Developed by the Haas’sche Schrigtgiesserei (Hass Type Foundy) in Munchesnstien, Switzerland, it was mean to match the trend of and rebirth the interest in the turn-of-the-century grotesque typefaces with European graphic designers, which resulted in the release of Universe, created by Adrian Frutiger within the same year.

The influences of Helvetica includes Schelter-Grotesk and Haas’ Normal Grotesk which lead to the name of Neue Hass Grotesk which gained considerable attention on its release, this was adopted for widespread release. The name was changed to Helvetica (meaning Swiss in Latin) by the German parent company Stempel in 1960 as a mean of a more marketable name internationally. With intention of matching the success of Univers, Stempel redesigned the typeface into a larger family.

Helvetica has become one of the most used sans-serif typefaces, it is a common choice in commercial wordmarks for brands such as 3M, BMW, ECM, Mcdonalds, Motorola, Nestle, Panasonic, Skype, Target and Verizon. Apple also used Helvetica as the syste,m typeface of iOS used for their products.

In 2007 a feature-length film directed by Gary Hustwit was released that coincided with the 50^th anniversary of the typeface.

Typeface Poster 1

Overall from my experience researching and using Helvetica for my studio project I now have a better understanding as to why Helvetica has become one of the most popular typefaces in history. The clarity and simplicity, the vertical and horizontal form of the strokes, the monotone weight of the lines, all culminate into a typeface that is both classic and modern that highly works in when viewed by the public eye, that is why I find that it fits perfectly with its current uses in advertising, signage and documents. It is clear and easy to read while also keeping a structured form that shows in design. Before applying this typeface to my posters I never thought anything of the font but with having a clearer understanding of its history and current uses in the public today I have more appreciation for Helvetica and what it has accomplished.

27th Alphabet Poster 1

When using the font in my posters the first thing that came to mind was the clean and structured form which I ended up focusing on with my first font poster but that resulted in a product that felt information heavy and cluttered, this resulted in a more minimalistic second attempt where I took away most of the information and played around with the font to add more of a playful vibe which I also took into account when choosing the image of the woman as I felt that it was playful but also elegant. The use of colours were chosen to feature an older style look and to add some depth to the design. As for the symbol poster If focused on a minimal design which featured negative space while having the 27^th alphabet as the main point of view of the poster while also including a smaller section of information.

27th Alphabet Poster 2

Typeface Poster 2