Happy Birthday Helvetica!

Arguably one of the worlds most popular typefaces, Helvetica celebrates 50 years of typographical excellence this year!

I've always considered myself to be a fan of typography and the power of typeface in design, despite my limited knowledge & experince. My wife can attest to my annoying habit of identifying fonts used in products or signage and quizzing her on the typeface's name.

Recently at Blockbuster - "C'mon hun... What font is the "Comedy" section sign using? C'mon babe, it's SOoo obvious... That has to be one of the most obvious typefaces ever... What?! You're not even going to guess!?"

After a bit more obnoxious pushing, my dear, sweet and infinitely patient wife chances a guess. More of a 'just-to-make-him-shut-up' answer really.

"Arial" She says in much the same tone that she uses to say "M & M" when I ask her who the rapper is on the radio. Appearantly every rapper in the hip hop world is M & M, every blues singer is BB King and every font is Arial.

"Hah! Arial?! You said 'Arial'? Man that's not even close! Sheesh - it's Copperplate!" I blurt out, in the falsly superior tone that only an infinitely patient wife can endure.

"Well... I thought it was either Arial, or New Times Roman. You know they all look pretty much the same to me" She finishes, slyly compelling me into a tyrade of shock and disbelief in her typographical ignorance, while she slips a copy of Ann of Green gables into our stack of DVDs.

Needless to say, niether she nor any of the patrons with-in earshot are the least bit impressed with my obviously superior capacity for typeface identification or my feigned lack of humility. While it is a disappointment that my wife doesn't share my passion for typography, I've come to realize that I don't really know all that much about it myself.

So when I read about Helvitica's "50th Birthday" I decided to rekindle an old flame and see if I could re-ignite my passion for typography with a litte research on the Helvtica typeface. Here's what I found.

Helvetica is a neutral, sans serif font originally designed back in 1957 by Swiss graphic artist Max Miedinger. Miedinger worked for Haas Typefoundry, in Münchenstein, Switzerland.

[ Notably: 51% of Haas was owned by Stempel, and Stempel was controlled by Linotype. So depending on the article you may see any one of these names pop up. ]

The font was originally designed to compete with the existing "Akzidenz Grotesk" typeface released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1898 which was widely used in Swiss printing at the time.

Originally dubbed 'Neue Haas Grotesk', the name was changed to be more internationally appealing in 1960. The new name, 'Helvetica', was derived from 'Confederatio Helvetica' the latin name for 'Switzerland' and/or spcifically 'Helvetica' which is appearantly Latin for 'Swiss'.

In addition to the new, international-market friendly name, the font was redrawn for the Linotype machines, recieving a few minor tweaks.

Over the years different weights of the typeface were released to meet the growing need for variation in typographical design. However, it wasn't until 1983 that Helvetica got it's first fully coordinated re-release when it was re-designed and digitized by D. Stempel AG, who dubbed the latest version 'Neue helvetica'.

The 2004 release of 'Helvetica Linotype' (renamed Helvetica World in 2006) marked it's most modern iteration, but in it's 50 years, Helvetica has found it's way (in one variation or another) into logos, onto branding & marketing materials, used in written documents and many digital user interfaces.

Helvetica can be found in the logos and marketing/branding of many of the world's top brands including 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, Energizer batteries, Jeep, Microsoft, National Car Rental, Panasonic, and Target.

Not to be tied down to logos only, the purposely neutral Helvetica is used in many user interfaces. Helvetica is the default font for most Apple/Mac programs, and the user interface for Apple's iPhone and newer iPods use Helvetica almost exclusively. Helvetica is the offically preferred typeface of Canadian government documents & websites and you'll even find Helvetica adorning the many subway signs of New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica
www.typophile.com/node/13514
www.linotype.com/helvetica?urlrewrite=helvetica