Helvetica Assignment

Helvetica Assignment


1) Helvetica is a font. The point of fonts is to add extra meaning to the words typed in it subconsciously, to add emotion, to be expressive. Helvetica is a font whose emotion, whose expression is almost that there is no expression, it allows the word to create its own expression. The word is not encased in excess meaning, it is allowed to speak for itself. Thus the descriptions of it being clear, being legible and so on.

2) Max Miedinger with Edward Hoffman at Haas’ design company designed the font. Originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk, it came from Switzerland. A company Linotype adopted the font and reworked it, and then Stemple renamed it to Helvetica, derrived from the Greek Words for Swiss.

3) Michael Bierut: It's The Real Thing. Period. Coke. Period. Any Questions? Of Course Not.



Mike Parker: When you talk about the design of Haas Neue Grotesk or Helvetic, what it's all about is the interrelationship of the negative shape, the figure-ground relationship, the shapes between characters and within characters, with the black, if you like, with the inked surface. And the Swiss pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. I mean you can't imagine anything moving; it is so firm. It not a letter that bent to shape; it's a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space. It's... oh, it's brilliant when it's done well.



Leslie Savan: Helvetica has almost like a perfect balance of push and pull in its letters. And that perfect balance sort of is saying to us - well it's not sort of, it *is* saying to us - "don't worry, any of the problems that you're having, or the problems in the world, or problems getting through the subway, or finding a bathroom... all those problem aren't going to spill over, they'll be contained. And in fact, maybe they don't exist."

4) Erik Spiekermann: Most people who use Helvetica, use it because it's ubiquitous. It's like going to McDonald's instead of thinking about food. Because it's there, it's on every street corner, so let's eat crap because it's on the corner.

5) I personally am impartial. It is a font that is good at what it does and excels at accomplishing the job it was created to do. It is extremely overused and any graphic designer or type designer who can achieve the same effect that Helvetica created in the graphic designing world should be commended, because ultimately it has now become THE font to use for virtually anyone and has achieved monumental success. Things like that don’t happen for no reason. But the whole point of a Graphic Designer is to create unique designs, and Helvetica is clearly no longer unique, thus anyone who uses it is taking the easy way out. I would not personally use Helvetica myself, especially since I do not have access to it anyway, but I do not discriminate against people who do choose to use it.