Helvetica Neue Specimen by Jacqueline Simpson

Helvetica Neue

Helev 01

Type Specimen GRA 437 | 2017 Jacqueline Simpson

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Hass Type Foundry Max Miedinger

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History

Max Miedinger

Helvetica & Neue Helvetica

Alphabet

Weights & Styles

Special Characters & Ligatures

Numerals

Anatomy

Logos

Licensing & Copyright

Colophon

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The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history. Robert Rauschenberg

Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface that was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffman at the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Hass Type Foundry) of MĂźnchenstein, Switzerland. The typeface was created to compete with the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface popular within the Swiss market at the time, and was originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk. The aim of this design was to create a versatile typeface that was neutral, had great clarity and had no intrinsic meaning in its form. The name was changed to Helvetica in order to appeal to other markets around the world, while also maintaining the spirit and heritage that this typeface embodies. Initially, Haas' parent company, Stempel, wanted to name the typeface Helvetia, meaning Switzerland in Latin, however this was already taken by a Swiss sewing machine company. As a result, Stempel settled on Helvetica, the latin word for swiss, as that was a close approximation.

M M 07

AX MIEDINGE

People say, "Why do you paint?" and I say, to make magic. Peter Blake

At the age of sixteen, young Max Miedinger of Zürich, Switzerland became an apprentice typesetter for a small book printing office. After four years of training, he enrolled in the School of Arts and Crafts and later started working for an advertising company called Globus in 1936 where he gained more experience in the industry. In 1947, Miedinger started working as a customer counselor and typeface sales representative for the Haas’sche Schriftgießerei in Münchenstein, Switzerland. However, in 1956 Miedinger went freelance when Eduard Hoffmann, the director of the Haas’sche Schriftgießerei, commissioned him to develop a new sans-serif typeface. His typeface Haas-Grotesk was introduced in 1957, and later became the iconic Helvetica. In addition to Haas-Grotesk, Miedinger designed Pro Arte, a slabserif and Horizontal, a wide capitals design similar to Microgramma.

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The changes were minor,

Helvetica Neue Helvetica Neue

but the impact was great.

S Helvetica Neue

Helvetica

Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Jasper Johns

In 1983, Neue Helvetica, a re-working of the 1957 design by Max Miedinger, was created by D. Stempel AG for Linotype. Due to technological limitations that existed at the time of the original making of Helvetica, the shapes lacked in the perfection that could be made as technology advanced. Furthermore, the original design was redrawn, expanded and modified with complete design freedom. The outcome, Neue Helvetica, was a modified version with improved appearance and legibility, which in turn, meant greater usefulness. Some of the prominent differences you can observe between the original and the Neue Helvetica are the widths of some of the characters. The cap M, for instance, has been extended to improve balance and aesthetics. In addition, rounded characters were given a softer curve, bolstering the harmony of the design, and punctuation was strengthened, too.

Aa Gg

Bb Hh Mm Nn Ss Tt Yy Zz

Cc Ii Oo Uu

Dd Jj Pp Vv

Ee Kk Qq

Ff Ll Rr

Ww Xx I believe that any art communicates what you're in the mood to receive. Larry Rivers

Wegi 13

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hSy

The Helvetica Neue type family consists of 59 different weights, according to Linotype. These range from 25 ultra light to 95 extra black. This number system was derived from the numbering used for the Univers font family. The number represents the stroke thickness and the second figure describes the orientation of the font. The central point in the Helvetica Neue font family is "Helvetica Roman" or "Regular" just like 55 Roman is the central point in the Univers font family. 14 of the more commonly used weights are shown in the following pages.