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Helvetica
TypefaceHelvetica
CategorySans-serif
Designer(s)Max Miedinger
FoundryHaas’sche Schriftgießerei
Date released1957
Re-issuing foundriesMergenthaler Linotype Company
Design based onAkzidenz Grotesk
VariationsHelvetica Neue
Nimbus Sans
Also known asSwiss 721 BT
Font previewThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Sample
This article is about the typeface Helvetica. For the Confoederatio Helvetica, see Switzerland.
For the documentary, see .
Helvetica is the name of a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss graphic designer Max Miedinger.

History

Helvetica was created by Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas type foundry) of Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with Akzidenz Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, the typeface's name was changed by Haas' German parent company Stempel in 1960 to Helvetica — derived from Confederatio Helvetica, the Latin name for Switzerland — in order to make it more marketable internationally.

Director Gary Hustwit has produced a documentary on Helvetica, called simply Helvetica. It was released in 2007 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the typeface's introduction. In the film, graphic designer Wim Crouwel says, "The 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."

Usage

Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Versions exist for the Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Greek alphabets. Unicode character sets include special characters and accents for Hindi, Urdu, Khmer, and Vietnamese. Variants of character-based writing systems including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean have been developed to complement Helvetica.

Companies and products that have used Helvetica in their wordmarks include 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, the former American Telephone & Telegraph Company, Energizer batteries, Greyhound Lines, Jeep, Lufthansa, Marks & Spencer, Microsoft, Karlsberger, National Car Rental, Panasonic, and Target Corporation. Apple, Inc.'s Mac OS X uses Helvetica as its default font for numerous applications, and the interface for the iPhone and newer iPods uses Helvetica almost exclusively. New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) uses Helvetica for all of its subway signs (though some older signs sport the similar Akzidenz Grotesk).

Canada's federal government uses Helvetica as its corporate typeface, and encourages its use in all federal agencies and websites[1].

Other similar typefaces

Monotype's Arial, designed in 1982, while different from Helvetica in some few details, has identical character widths, and is indistinguishable by most non-specialists. The capital letters C, G, and R, as well as the lowercase letters a, e, r, and t, are useful for quickly distinguishing Arial and Helvetica.[2] Differences include:
  • Helvetica's strokes are typically cut either horizontally or vertically. This is especially visible in the t, r, and C. Arial employs slanted stroke cuts.
  • Helvetica's G has a well-defined spur; Arial does not.
  • The tails of the R glyphs and the a glyphs are different.
In 2007, Helvetica's 50th birthday, Microsoft replaced Arial and Times New Roman, the defaults in Microsoft Office applications, with a new sans-serif design Calibri by Luc(as) de Groot.

Helvetica Neue, a reworking of Helvetica with a more structurally unified set of weights and widths, was developed at D. Stempel AG, Linotype's daughter company. The studio manager was Wolfgang Schimpf, his assistant Reinhard Haus. Manager of the project was René Kerfante. Erik Spiekermann was the design cosultant and designed the literature for the launch in 1983.[3] The weight and width program of Helvetica Neue is similar to that of the Univers typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger.

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ How to Spot Arial at Mark Simonson Studio
3. ^ [2] "Who Made Helvetica Neue?", typophile.com

External links

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In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif (sometimes just sans) typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".
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Max Miedinger (December 24th, 1910 - March 8th, 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer. He was famous for creating Helvetica in 1957. The typeface, initially called Neue Haas Grotesk, was commissioned by Eduard Hoffman for the Haas'sche Schriftgießerei.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1954 1955 1956 - 1957 - 1958 1959 1960

Year 1957 (MCMLVII
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Mergenthaler Linotype Company was founded in the United States in 1886 to market the linecaster invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. With the company's primary product, the Linotype (pronounced
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Akzidenz Grotesk <nowiki /> Category Sans-serif
<nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki />
Foundry H. Berthold AG <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki />
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Helvetica <nowiki /> Category Sans-serif
<nowiki />
Designer(s) Max Miedinger <nowiki /> <nowiki />
Foundry Haas’sche Schriftgießerei <nowiki /> <nowiki />
Date released 1957 <nowiki />
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Motto
Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (Latin) (traditional)[1]
"One for all, all for one"
Anthem
"Swiss Psalm"
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In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif (sometimes just sans) typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".
..... Click the link for more information.
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
Please help recruit one or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details.
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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1920s  1930s  1940s  - 1950s -  1960s  1970s  1980s
1954 1955 1956 - 1957 - 1958 1959 1960

Year 1957 (MCMLVII
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Motto
Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (Latin) (traditional)[1]
"One for all, all for one"
Anthem
"Swiss Psalm"
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additional references or sources for verification.
* It may require general cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

Please help [ improve the article] or discuss these issues on the talk page.
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Max Miedinger (December 24th, 1910 - March 8th, 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer. He was famous for creating Helvetica in 1957. The typeface, initially called Neue Haas Grotesk, was commissioned by Eduard Hoffman for the Haas'sche Schriftgießerei.
..... Click the link for more information.
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
Please help recruit one or [ improve this article] yourself. See the talk page for details.
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Münchenstein is a municipality in the district of Arlesheim in the canton of Basel-Country in Switzerland.

External links

  • Official website

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Motto
Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (Latin) (traditional)[1]
"One for all, all for one"
Anthem
"Swiss Psalm"
..... Click the link for more information.
Akzidenz Grotesk <nowiki /> Category Sans-serif
<nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki />
Foundry H. Berthold AG <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki />
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (Latin) (traditional)[1]
"One for all, all for one"
Anthem
"Swiss Psalm"
..... Click the link for more information.
Helvetica is a feature-length independent documentary film about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture released in 2007 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the titular typeface's introduction.
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Wim Crouwel, born in 1928 in Groningen, Netherlands, is a Dutch graphic designer and typographer.

He is known for his posters and exhibition design for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
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For the periodical, see .
The 19th Century (also written XIX century) lasted from 1801 through 1900 in the Gregorian calendar. It is often referred to as the "1800s.
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Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the world's writing systems. Developed in tandem with the Universal Character Set standard and published in book form as The Unicode Standard
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A fictive wordmark illustrating how typographic treatment and color can make a name more visually memorable.]]

A wordmark, subset of the term logotype
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3M Company

Public (NYSE:  MMM )
Founded Two Harbors, Minnesota, USA (1902)
Headquarters Maplewood, Minnesota, USA

Key people George W. Buckley, Chairman, President and CEO
Patrick D.
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AA ICAO
AAL Callsign
AMERICAN
Founded 1930 (as American Airways)
Hubs Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
O'Hare International Airport
Miami International Airport
Lambert-St.
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American Apparel

Private company
Founded Los Angeles, California
Headquarters Los Angeles, California

Key people Dov Charney, CEO
Marty Bailey, COO
Ken Cieply, CFO
Nicolle Gabbay, Head of Retail Operations
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