Helvetica Typeface Sample
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Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used
sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...
typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...
developed in 1957 by Swiss
typeface designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
Max Miedinger Max Miedinger (24 December 1910 – 8 March 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer, best known for creating the ''Neue Haas Grotesk'' typeface in 1957, renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica achie ...
and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a
neo-grotesque In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...
design, one influenced by the famous 19th-century (1890s) typeface
Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin in 1898. ' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine pr ...
and other German and Swiss designs. Its use became a hallmark of the
International Typographic Style The International Typographic Style is a systemic approach to graphic design that emerged during the 1930s–1950s but continued to develop internationally. It is considered the basis of the Swiss style. It expanded on and formalized the modern ...
that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-20th century. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths, and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high
x-height upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the le ...
, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, solid appearance. Developed by the ''Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei'' (
Haas Type Foundry Haas Type Foundry (''Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei'') was a Swiss manufacturer of foundry type. First the factory was located in Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine ...
) of
Münchenstein Münchenstein (Swiss German: ''Minggestai'') is a municipality in the district of Arlesheim in the canton of Basel-Landschaft in Switzerland. Historical records Münchenstein is first mentioned in 1196 as ''Kekingen''. In 1270, it was mentione ...
(
Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
), Switzerland, its release was planned to match a trend: a resurgence of interest in turn-of-the-century "grotesque" sans-serifs among European graphic designers, that also saw the release of
Univers Univers () is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-cen ...
by
Adrian Frutiger Adrian Johann Frutiger (; 24 May 1928 – 10 September 2015) was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digital ...
the same year. Hoffmann was the president of the Haas Type Foundry, while Miedinger was a freelance graphic designer who had formerly worked as a Haas salesman and designer. Originally named Neue Haas Grotesk (New Haas Grotesque), it was soon licensed by Linotype and renamed Helvetica in 1960, which in
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
means , from , capitalising on Switzerland's reputation as a centre of ultra-modern graphic design.


History

The first version of the typeface (which later became known as Helvetica) was designed in by Max Miedinger with art direction by Eduard Hoffmann. His goal was to design a new sans serif typeface that could compete in the Swiss market as a neutral face that should not be given any additional meaning. The main influence on Helvetica was
Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin in 1898. ' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine pr ...
from
Berthold Berthold may refer to: * Berthold (name), a Germanic given name and surname * Berthold Type Foundry, former German type foundry * Berthold, North Dakota, a place in the United States See also * Berthod, a surname * Berchtold Berchtold (also Bert ...
; Hoffman's scrapbook of proofs of the design shows careful comparison of test proofs with snippets of Akzidenz-Grotesk. Its 'R' with a curved tail resembles Schelter-Grotesk, another turn-of-the-century sans-serif sold by Haas. Wolfgang Homola comments that in Helvetica "the weight of the stems of the capitals and the lower case is better balanced" than in its influences. Attracting considerable attention on its release as ''Neue Haas Grotesk'' (''Nouvelle Antique Haas'' in French-speaking countries), Stempel and Linotype adopted Neue Haas Grotesk for release in hot metal composition, the standard typesetting method at the time for
body text __NOTOC__ Body text or body copy, or running text, is the text forming the main content of a book, magazine, web page, or any other printed or digital work. This is as a contrast to both additional components such as headings, images, charts, foot ...
, and on the international market. In ,
Stempel A stempel ia a shelf set into a mineshaft for storing waste material, or for use as a step or support. Stempel is also a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Gary Stempel (born 1957), English-Panamanian football manager * Herbert ...
(the German parent company of Haas) changed the typeface's name to ''Helvetica'', to make it more marketable internationally; it comes from the Latin name for the pre-Roman tribes of what became Switzerland. Intending to match the success of
Univers Univers () is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-cen ...
, Arthur Ritzel of Stempel redesigned Neue Haas Grotesk into a larger
typeface family A typeface (or font family) is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, bold), slope (e.g., italic), width ...
. The design was popular: Paul Shaw suggests that Helvetica "began to muscle out" Akzidenz-Grotesk in New York City from around summer 1965, when Amsterdam Continental, which imported European typefaces, stopped pushing Akzidenz-Grotesk in its marketing and began to focus on Helvetica instead. It was also made available for
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...
systems, as well as in other formats such as
Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry-transfer lettering method. Letraset was acquired by the Colart group and became part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. C ...
dry transfers and plastic letters, and many phototypesetting imitations and knock-offs were rapidly created by competing phototypesetting companies. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Linotype licensed Helvetica to
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
,
Adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...
and
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
, guaranteeing its importance in digital printing by making it one of the core
computer font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...
s of the
PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...
page description language. This led to a version being included on Macintosh computers, with
Arial Arial is a sans-serif typeface in the Sans-serif#Neo-grotesque, neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and ma ...
(a metrically compatible clone) included with Microsoft Windows computers. The rights to Helvetica are now held by
Monotype Imaging Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use wit ...
, which acquired Linotype; the Neue Haas Grotesk digitisation (discussed below) was co-released with Font Bureau.


Characteristics

* Tall
x-height upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the le ...
, which makes it easier to read at distance. * Tight spacing between letters. * An
oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry * Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the ...
rather than italic style, a common feature of almost all grotesque and neo-grotesque typefaces. * Wide capitals of uniform width, particularly obvious in the wide 'E' and 'F'. * Square-looking 's'. * Bracketed top flag of '1'. * Rounded off square tail of 'R'. * Concave curved stem of '7'. * Two-storied 'a' (with curves of bowl and stem), a standard neo-grotesque feature, and single-storey 'g' Like many neo-grotesque designs, Helvetica has narrow
apertures In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image of ...
, which limits its legibility onscreen and at small print sizes. It also has no visible difference between upper-case 'i' and lower-case 'L', although the number 1 is quite identifiable with its flag at top left. Its tight, display-oriented spacing may also pose problems for legibility. Other computer fonts intended for legibility at small sizes such as
Verdana Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand- hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typogra ...
,
Meta Meta most commonly refers to: * Meta (prefix), a common affix and word in English ( in Greek) * Meta Platforms, an American multinational technology conglomerate (formerly ''Facebook, Inc.'') Meta or META may also refer to: Businesses * Meta (ac ...
,
Trebuchet A trebuchet () is a type of catapult that uses a hinged arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles ...
, or a
monospace font A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with Typeface#Proportion, variable-width fonts, where t ...
such as
Courier A courier is a person or organization that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...
, which makes all letters quite wide, may be more appropriate than Helvetica.


Usage examples

Helvetica is among the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. Versions exist for
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
,
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...
,
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
,
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
, Khmer, and
Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...
alphabets.
Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...
faces have been developed to complement Helvetica. Helvetica is a common choice for commercial wordmarks: in 2007, the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
remarked that a list of users "would fill this page". Helvetica has been widely used by the
U.S. government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executi ...
; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica. The
Canadian government The Government of Canada (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes ministers of the Crown ( ...
also uses Helvetica as its identifying typeface and encourages its use in all federal agencies and websites. Helvetica is commonly used in transportation settings. New York City's
Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a New York state public benefit corporations, public benefit corporation in New York (state), New York State responsible for public transportation in the New York metropolitan area, New York Ci ...
(MTA) adopted Helvetica for use in signage in 1989. Helvetica is also used in the
Washington Metro The Washington Metro, often abbreviated as the Metro and formally the Metrorail, is a rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area of the United States. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority ...
, the
Chicago 'L' Chicago is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los ...
, Philadelphia's
SEPTA SEPTA, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly four million people througho ...
, and the
Madrid Metro The Madrid Metro (Spanish: ''Metro de Madrid'') is a rapid transit system serving the city of Madrid, capital of Spain. The system is the 14th longest rapid transit system in the world, with a total length of . Its growth between 1995 and 200 ...
, and in some airports like
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
,
Phoenix Sky Harbor Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is a civil-military public international airport east of downtown Phoenix, in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. It is Arizona's largest and busiest airport; among the largest commercial airports ...
, and
Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
. The typeface was displaced from some uses in the 1990s to the increased availability of other fonts on digital
desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online co ...
systems, and criticism from type designers including
Erik Spiekermann Erik Spiekermann (born 30 May 1947) is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design. Biography Spiekermann studied art history at Berlin's Free Uni ...
and
Martin Majoor Martin Majoor (born 14 October 1960) is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland. Biography Early life Majoor was born in 1960 in the town of Baarn, in th ...
, both of whom have criticised the design for its omnipresence and overuse. Majoor has described Helvetica as 'rather cheap' for its failure to move on from the model of Akzidenz-Grotesk.


Media coverage

An early essay on Helvetica's public image as a typeface used by business and government was written in 1976 by Leslie Savan, a writer on advertising at the ''
Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...
''. It was later republished in her book ''The Sponsored Life''. In 2007, Linotype GmbH held the Helvetica NOW Poster Contest to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the typeface. Winners were announced in the January 2008 issue of the LinoLetter. In 2007, director
Gary Hustwit Gary Hustwit is an American independent filmmaker and photographer. He is best known for his design documentaries, which examine the impact of trends in graphic design, typography, industrial design, architecture, and urban planning. He told '' ...
released a documentary film, ''
Helvetica Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the f ...
'' (Plexifilm, DVD), to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the typeface. In the film, graphic designer
Wim Crouwel Willem Hendrik "Wim" Crouwel (; 21 November 1928 – 19 September 2019) was a Dutch graphic designer, type designer, and typographer. Early life and education Between 1947 and 1949, he studied Fine Arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen, the ...
said, "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." The documentary also presented other designers who associated Helvetica with authority and corporate dominance, and whose rebellion from Helvetica's ubiquity created new styles. From April 2007 to March 2008, the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in New York City displayed an exhibit called "50 Years of Helvetica". In 2011 the
Disseny Hub Barcelona The Design Museum of Barcelona () is a center of Barcelona's Institute of Culture. It aims to promote a better understanding and effective use of the design world, functioning as both a museum and a laboratory. The museum focuses on four design di ...
displayed an exhibit called ''Helvetica. A New Typeface?''. The exhibition included a timeline of Helvetica over the last fifty years, its antecedents and its subsequent influence, including in the local area. In 2011, one of Google's
April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. ...
jokes centered on the use of Helvetica. If a user attempted to search for the term "Helvetica" using the search engine, the results would be displayed in
Comic Sans Comic Sans MS is a sans-serif typeface created and designed by Vincent Connare and released by Microsoft Corporation in 1994. Designed as a non-connecting script, the typeface draws inspiration from comic book lettering, to emulate the informal ...
.


Variants

A large number of variants of Helvetica were rapidly released to expand on its popularity, including new weights and languages. Linotype confessed by the time of a 1976
advertorial An advertorial is an advertisement in the form of editorial content. The term "advertorial" is a blend word, blend (see portmanteau) of the words "advertisement" and "editorial". Merriam-Webster dates the origin of the word to 1946. In printed pub ...
that things had become somewhat confused: "the series was not planned as a whole from its conception...the series is not as uniform as
Univers Univers () is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-cen ...
".


Helvetica Light

Helvetica Light was designed by Stempel's artistic director Erich Schultz-Anker, in conjunction with Arthur Ritzel.


Helvetica Inserat

Helvetica Inserat (German for ''advertisement'') is a version designed primarily for use in the advertising industry: this is a narrow variant that is tighter than Helvetica Black Condensed. It gives the glyphs an even larger
x-height upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the le ...
and a more squared appearance, similar to Schmalfette Grotesk. Adobe's release notes date it to 1966 and state that it originated with Stempel.


Helvetica Compressed (1966)

Designed by
Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.A Man of Letters
and Hans-Jürg Hunziker for
cold type Phototypesetting is a method of setting type which uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing which gave rise to digit ...
. It shares some design elements with Helvetica Inserat, but uses a curved tail in Q, downward pointing branch in r, and tilde bottom £. Carter has said that in practice it was designed to be similar to Schmalfette Grotesk and to compete in this role with British designs
Impact Impact may refer to: * Impact (mechanics), a large force or mechanical shock over a short period of time * Impact, Texas, a town in Taylor County, Texas, US Science and technology * Impact crater, a meteor crater caused by an impact event * Imp ...
and Compacta, as this style was popular at the time. Carter, who also later designed Helvetica Greek, had designed a modernised version of Akzidenz-Grotesk for signage at
Heathrow Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...
in 1961, and commented later "if we'd known about elveticaI'm sure we would have used it, since it's a much better typeface than the one I drew. But the typesetting trade was very conservative then, and new type designs traveled slowly." The family consists of Helvetica Compressed, Helvetica Extra Compressed and Helvetica Ultra Compressed faces. It has been digitised, for instance in the Adobe Helvetica release.


Helvetica Rounded (1978)

Helvetica Rounded is a version containing rounded stroke terminators, released for bold weights. Linotype's release notes date it to 1978.


Helvetica Narrow

Helvetica Narrow is a version where its width is between Helvetica Compressed and Helvetica Condensed. This computer font was developed when memory space in electronic printers was very scarce, so it was created by mathematically squashing Helvetica to 82% of the original width, resulting in distorted letterforms, with vertical strokes narrowed but horizontals unchanged. Because of the distortion problems, Adobe dropped Helvetica Narrow in its release of Helvetica in
OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. Derived from TrueType, it retains TrueType's basic structure but adds many intricate data structures for describing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corpora ...
format, recommending users choose Helvetica Condensed instead.


Helvetica Textbook

Helvetica Textbook is an alternate design of the typeface, which uses 'schoolbook'
stylistic alternates In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts "Roman" (or "regular ...
to increase distinguishability: a seriffed capital 'i' and 'j' to increase distinguishability, a 'q' with a flick upwards and other differences, such as the digits '1' and '4' similar to how handwritten digits are. The letters 'a', 't', 'u', and the digits '6' and '9' are replaced with designs similar to those in geometric sans-serifs such as those found in Futura, Akzidenz-Grotesk Schulbuch, and Avant Garde (except for 'u').
FontShop FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them renow ...
's FF Schulbuch is similar.


Language variants

Helvetica Greek has gone through several versions.
Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry-transfer lettering method. Letraset was acquired by the Colart group and became part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. C ...
designed a semi-official version for their dry transfer lettering system, available by 1970, which sold well but was considered unidiomatic by Linotype. Linotype published a 1971 version designed by
Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.A Man of Letters
which was available for phototypesetting and so for general purpose printing such as extended text. Carter felt in 1974 that the Letraset version was "a poor thing" and Linotype's version was "the real one" but that Letraset's was well-enough accepted in Greece that he felt it had "caused resistance to our version". Linotype published a new version in 2001 designed by John Hudson at Tiro Typeworks. The Cyrillic version was designed in-house in the 1970s at D Stempel AG, then critiqued and redesigned in 1992 under the advice of
Jovica Veljović Jovica Veljović (; born 1954) is a Serbian type designer and calligrapher. He is professor for type design at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In 1985, Veljović was awarded the Prix Charles Peignot, an infrequently awarded prize fo ...
, although a pirated version had already been created in 1963 by Russian designers Maxim Zhukov and Yuri Kurbatov.


Helvetica World

Helvetica World supports Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Vietnamese scripts. This
typeface family A typeface (or font family) is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, bold), slope (e.g., italic), width ...
consists of four
scalable font A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for printi ...
s in two weights and one width, with complementary italics. The Arabic glyphs were based on a redesigned Yakout font family from Linotype. Latin kerning and spacing were redesigned to have consistent spacing. John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks designed the Hebrew glyphs for the font family, as well as the Cyrillic, and Greek letters.


Neue Helvetica (1983)

Neue Helvetica (), sometimes Helvetica Neue in some digital files, is a reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths. Other changes include improved legibility, heavier punctuation marks, and increased spacing in the numbers. Neue Helvetica uses a numerical design classification scheme, like
Univers Univers () is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-cen ...
. The font family for this typeface comprises 51 fonts including nine weights in three widths (8 in normal width, 9 in condensed, and 8 in extended width variants) as well as an outline font based on Helvetica 75 Bold Outline (no Textbook or rounded fonts are available). Linotype distributes Neue Helvetica on CD. Neue Helvetica also comes in variants for Central European and Cyrillic text. It was developed at D. Stempel AG, a Linotype subsidiary. The studio manager was Wolfgang Schimpf, assisted by Reinhard Haus; the manager of the project was René Kerfante.
Erik Spiekermann Erik Spiekermann (born 30 May 1947) is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design. Biography Spiekermann studied art history at Berlin's Free Uni ...
was the design consultant and designed the literature for the launch in 1983. Figures were widened and some condensed weights changed from having nearly flat-sided verticals to a more continuous curve throughout the entire height. Designer
Christian Schwartz Christian Schwartz (born December 30, 1977, in Concord, New Hampshire, United States) is an American type designer. He has been awarded the German Design Award and the Prix Charles Peignot. Life Schwartz began designing fonts in school. A g ...
, who would later release his own digitisation of the original Helvetica designs (see below), expressed disappointment with this and other digital releases of Helvetica: "digital Helvetica has always been one-size-fits-all, which leads to unfortunate compromises...the spacing has ended up much looser than Miedinger's wonderfully tight original at display sizes but much too tight for comfortable reading at text sizes."
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
used first Helvetica then Neue Helvetica as its
system font Web typography, like typography generally, is the design of pages their layout and typeface choices. Unlike traditional print-based typography (where the page is fixed once typeset), pages intended for display on the World Wide Web have additiona ...
. All releases of
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
prior to OS X Yosemite (10.10) used
Lucida Grande Lucida Grande is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It is a member of the Lucida family of typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. It is best known for its implementation throughout the macOS user interface from 1999 to 2014, a ...
as the system font. The version of Neue Helvetica used as the system font in OS X 10.10 is specially optimised;
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
's intention is to provide a consistent experience for people who use both iOS and OS X. Apple replaced Neue Helvetica with the similarly looking
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
in
iOS 9 iOS 9 is the ninth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 8. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8, 2015, and was released on September 16, ...
and OS X El Capitan (10.11), meaning OS X 10.10 was the only macOS version to use Neue Helvetica as the system font.


Neue Helvetica W1G (2009)

It is a version with Latin Extended, Greek, Cyrillic scripts support. Only OpenType CFF font format was released. The family includes the fonts from the older Neue Helvetica counterparts, except Neue Helvetica 75 Bold Outline. Additional OpenType features include subscript/superscript.


Neue Helvetica Arabic (2009)

Designed by Lebanese designer
Nadine Chahine Nadine Chahine (in Arabic: نادين شاهين) is a Lebanese type designer working as the CEO at I Love Typography Ltd and the Director at ArabicType Ltd. From 2005 till 2015 she worked as the Arabic Specialist at Linotype and Monotype Imagi ...
, it is a version with Arabic script support. Only OpenType TTF font format was released. The family includes three fonts in three weights and one width, without italics (45, 55, 65).


Neue Helvetica eText (2011)

It is a version of Neue Helvetica optimised for on-screen use, designed by Akira Kobayashi of Monotype Imaging. Changes from Neue Helvetica include more open spacing. Unlike Helvetica, the capitals are reduced in size so the lower-case ascenders rise above them, a common feature associated with text typefaces. The family includes eight fonts in four weights and one width, with complementary italics (45, 46, 55, 56, 65, 66, 75, 76). OpenType features include numerators/denominators, fractions, ligatures, scientific inferiors, subscript/superscript.


(Neue) Helvetica Thai (2012)

Anuthin Wongsunkakon, a Thai
type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
of Cadson Demak Co., created Thai versions of Helvetica and Neue Helvetica fonts. The design uses loopless terminals in Thai glyphs, which had also been used by Wongsunkakon's previous design, Manop Mai (New Manop).


Neue Helvetica Georgian (2015)

It is a version with Georgian script support. Designed by Akaki Razmadze at Monotype Bad Homburg. Only OpenType CFF and TTF font formats were released. The family includes eight fonts in eight weights and one width, without italics (25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95).


Neue Helvetica Armenian (2016)

Designed by Edik Ghabuzyan, it is a version of Neue Helvetica supporting Armenian language. The family includes 16 fonts in 8 weights (ultra light, thin, light, regular, medium, bold, heavy, black) with complementary italics.


Neue Helvetica World (2017)

Designed by Nadine Chahine, Linotype Design Studio, Monotype Design Studio and Edik Ghabuzyan, Neue Helvetica World has support for the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Armenian, Georgian and Vietnamese scripts, for a total of 181 languages. It also has complete support for Unicode block u+0400. Published in November 2017 by Linotype, it was released in Truetype and OpenType CFF formats. The family includes 6 fonts in 3 weights (45 Light, 55 Roman, 75 Bold), with complimentary italic. Roman fonts include 1,708 glyphs and 1,285 glyphs for italics. For working with other languages, the publisher also recommended following the complementary fonts: * Devanagari: Saral Devanagari * Japanese: Tazugane Gothic, Yu Gothic * Korean: YD Gothic 100, YD Gothic 700 * Simplified Chinese: M Ying Hei PRC, M Hei PRC * Traditional Chinese: M Ying Hei HK, M Hei HK


Neue Haas Grotesk (2010)

Christian Schwartz Christian Schwartz (born December 30, 1977, in Concord, New Hampshire, United States) is an American type designer. He has been awarded the German Design Award and the Prix Charles Peignot. Life Schwartz began designing fonts in school. A g ...
's digitisation is based on original settings of the metal type and uses the typeface's original name. It was released by Linotype (later Monotype Imaging),
Commercial Type Commercial Type is a digital type foundry established in 2007 by type designers Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz. Its work includes typefaces for ''The Guardian'', such as the Guardian Egyptian series, and other retail and commissioned typefa ...
, and Font Bureau with an article on the history of Helvetica by Professor Indra Kupferschmid. Unlike earlier digitisations, Schwartz created two different
optical size In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regula ...
s (labelled Text and Display), which have different spacing metrics giving tighter spacing at display size and looser spacing to increase legibility in
body text __NOTOC__ Body text or body copy, or running text, is the text forming the main content of a book, magazine, web page, or any other printed or digital work. This is as a contrast to both additional components such as headings, images, charts, foot ...
. The release includes a number of features not present on digitisations branded as Helvetica,
stylistic alternates In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts "Roman" (or "regular ...
such as separate punctuation sets for upper- and lower-case text, "modernist" cedilla designs styled to match the comma and reduced-height numbers to blend into extended text. Both optical sizes provide stylistic alternates for a straight-legged upper case "R", while the Display variant additionally provides stylistic alternates for a lower case "a" without tail. It originated from an abandoned redesign plan for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' newspaper. Writing for ''Typographica'',
Matthew Butterick Matthew Coffin Butterick (born November 15, 1970) is an American typographer, lawyer, writer, and computer programmer. He received the 2012 Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute for his book ''Typography for Lawyers'', which started ...
described the release as better than any previous digital release of Helvetica "it's never looked better". Users include
Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
, the
Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
, and for the album ''
Midnights ''Midnights'' is the tenth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 21, 2022, by Republic Records. She conceived ''Midnights'' as a concept album about nocturnal ruminations inspired by her sleepl ...
'' by
Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
. Schwartz's company Commercial Type have additionally developed a companion monospaced version, agate version for small sizes and stencil font. The release does not include condensed weights or support for Greek and Cyrillic.


Variable Font Version

The Text optical size of Neue Haas Grotesk is available on
Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...
via "Pan-European Supplemental Fonts" optional feature. This version is a
variable font A variable font (VF) is a font file that is able to store a continuous range of design variants. An entire typeface (font family) can be stored in such a file, with an infinite number of fonts available to be sampled. The variable font technol ...
and provides weights ranging from Ultra Thin to Black. As of 2023, the variable font version of Neue Haas Grotesk is not yet otherwise available. Neue Haas Grotesk Text is also available on
Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...
via "Pan-European Supplemental Fonts", but this release includes static fonts instead of variable fonts.


Helvetica Now (2019)

In April 2019,
Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
announced an update of Neue Helvetica called "Helvetica Now", designed by Jan Hendrik Weber and Charles Nix of Monotype Imaging. The family has one width in three
optical sizes In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts "Roman" (or "regular" ...
, Text, Micro and Display in 8, 6, and 10 weights respectively. The condensed version corresponding to these optical sizes and weights was published later in 2021, along with Helvetica Now Variable. A key difference between the three optical sizes is the terminal design: Display retains the horizontal terminals in previous digital releases of Helvetica; Micro features diagonal terminals for many characters (e.g., lowercase "e" and "c"); while the design of Text is somewhere in between Display and Micro. Features include circled figures and redesigned arrow and @ glyphs. It also includes a number of alternate characters including curled lower-case "L", spurless rounded "G", a straight-legged "R" (found in Neue Haas Grotesk), single-story "a" (found in Helvetica Textbook) and lowercase "u" without a spur.


Helvetica Now Variable (2021)

Helvetica Now was also released as a
variable font A variable font (VF) is a font file that is able to store a continuous range of design variants. An entire typeface (font family) can be stored in such a file, with an infinite number of fonts available to be sampled. The variable font technol ...
, which has two styles (Regular and Italic) and three adjustable axes (weight, width, and optical size). Supported weight ranges include hairline to extra black, optical sizes include four point to infinity, widths include compressed and condensed.


Helvetica clones

Derivative designs based on Helvetica were rapidly developed, taking advantage of the lack of copyright protection in the
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...
typeface market of the 1960s onward. Some of these were straight clones, simply intended to be direct substitutes. Many of these are almost indistinguishable from Helvetica, while some add subtle differences. Substitute Helvetica designs that have survived into or originated during the digital period have included
Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
's Arial, Compugraphic's CG Triumvirate, ParaType's Pragmatica,
Bitstream A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
's Swiss 721,
URW++ URW Type Foundry GmbH (formerly URW++ Design & Development GmbH) is a type foundry based in Hamburg, Germany. The foundry has its own library with more than 500 font families. The company specializes in customized corporate typefaces and the dev ...
's
Nimbus Sans Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica. Nimbus Sans It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages. The font names ending with ...
and Scangraphic's Europa Grotesk. Berthold itself responded to Helvetica's popularity with Akzidenz-Grotesk Buch, effectively a Helvetica clone. Besides Helvetica imitations, Helvetica was available in custom derivatives with unusual special-order characters for many years, notably a straight-legged 'R' and round-topped 'A'.
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
uses a custom derivative, "CNN Sans", which has a '1' with a base and larger x-height.


Nimbus Sans

URW URW may refer to: * Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield * Union of Russian Workers * United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America or United Rubber Workers of America, North American trade union * UnReal World, survival video game * Unrestricte ...
(later URW++) under the leadership of
Peter Karow Peter Karow (born 11 November 1940) is a German entrepreneur, inventor and software developer. He holds several patents in the field of desktop publishing
produced a modification of Helvetica called
Nimbus Sans Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica. Nimbus Sans It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages. The font names ending with ...
. This is an extremely large font family with optical sizes spaced for different sizes of text and other variants such as stencil styles. Florian Hardwig has described its display-oriented styles, with tight spacing, as more reminiscent of Helvetica as used in the 1970s from cold type than any official Helvetica digitisation.


Arial and MS Sans Serif

Monotype Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The ...
's
Arial Arial is a sans-serif typeface in the Sans-serif#Neo-grotesque, neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and ma ...
, created for IBM and also used by Microsoft, is indistinguishable by most non-specialists. Matthew Carter, who was a consultant for IBM during its design process, describes it as "a Helvetica clone, based ostensibly on their Grots 215 and 216" (Monotype's old 1920s sans-serif family, popular in British trade printing in the metal type period, and itself based on the Bauer Venus-Grotesk family). Differences include: * Helvetica's strokes are typically cut either horizontally or vertically. This is especially visible in the t, r, f, and C. Arial employs slanted stroke cuts, following Monotype Grotesque. * Helvetica's G has a spur at bottom right; Arial does not, but instead has a vertical stroke connecting the curved portion to the crossbar. * The tail of Helvetica's R is more upright whereas Arial's R is more diagonal. * The number 1 of Helvetica has a square angle underneath the upper spur, Arial has a curve. * The Q glyph in Helvetica has a straight cross mark, while the cross mark in Arial has a slight curve. The design was created to substitute for Helvetica: Arial (and many other clones of the period) are metrically identical to the PostScript version of Helvetica, so that a document designed in Helvetica could be displayed and printed correctly without IBM having to pay Linotype for a Helvetica license on its printers. Microsoft's "Helv" design, later known as "
MS Sans Serif Microsoft Sans Serif is a sans-serif typeface introduced with early Microsoft Windows versions. It is the successor of MS Sans Serif, formerly Helv, a proportional bitmap font introduced in Windows 1.0. Both typefaces are very similar in design ...
", is a sans-serif typeface that shares many key characteristics to Helvetica, including the horizontally and vertically aligned stroke terminators and more-uniform stroke widths within a glyph.


Free Helvetica substitute fonts

*
Nimbus Sans L Nimbus Sans is a sans-serif typeface created by URW++, based on Helvetica. Nimbus Sans It is a version using URW++ font source. The family supports Western Europe, East Europe, Turkish, Baltic, and Romanian languages. The font names ending wit ...
, a version of URW's Nimbus Sans spaced to match the standard Linotype/PostScript version of Helvetica, was released under the
GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...
in 1996, and donated to the
Ghostscript Ghostscript is a suite of software based on an interpreter for Adobe Systems' PostScript and Portable Document Format (PDF) page description languages. Its main purposes are the rasterization of documents in these language,, the display or prin ...
project to create a free PostScript alternative. It (or a derivative) is used by much open-source software such as R as a system font. * TeX Gyre Heros – a derivative of Nimbus Sans L with enhanced letter forms and metrics – has been prepared for use in the
TeX Tex, TeX, TEX, may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Tex Earnhardt (1930–2020), U.S. businessman * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer ...
scientific document preparation software, and since 2009 general under the GUST font license. *
FreeSans GNU FreeFont (also known as Free UCS Outline Fonts) is a family of free OpenType, TrueType and WOFF vector fonts, implementing as much of the Universal Character Set (UCS) as possible, aside from the very large CJK Asian character set. The p ...
is a free font descending from URW++ Nimbus Sans L, which in turn descends from Helvetica. It is one of free (GPL) fonts developed in GNU FreeFont project, first published in 2002. Other such typefaces take creative liberties from Helvetica and its basic letter shapes. *
Liberation Sans Liberation or liberate may refer to: Film and television * ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War * "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode * "Liberation" (''K-9''), an episode Gaming * '' Liberati ...
is a metrically equivalent font to Arial developed by
Steve Matteson Steven R. Matteson (born 1965) is an American typeface designer whose work is included in several computer operating systems and embedded in game consoles, cell phones and other electronic devices. He is the designer of the Microsoft font family ...
at Ascender and published by
Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...
under the
SIL Open Font License The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Global, the ...
. It is used in some Linux distributions as default font replacement for Arial.
Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...
funded the additional development of Liberation Sans Narrow in 2010. Google commissioned a variation named Arimo for
ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...
. *
Roboto Roboto () is a typeface family developed by Google. The first typeface was created as the system font for its Android (operating system), Android operating system, and released in 2011 for Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sa ...
was developed by Christian Robertson of Google as the system font for its
Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...
operating system; this has a more condensed design with the influence of straight-sided geometric designs like
DIN 1451 DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications. It was defined by the German standards body DIN (, 'German Institute for Standardisation', pronounced like the English word ''din'') in ...
. * Inter (originally Inter UI) is a fork of Roboto that resembles Apple's
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
typeface. * Mona Sans, a
GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
variable font released under
SIL Open Font License The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Global, the ...
, stands out from the above examples with its 'single-storey' lowercase a.


Derivative designs

Some fonts based on Helvetica are intended for different purposes and have clearly different designs. Digital-period font designer
Ray Larabie Raymond Larabie (born 1970) is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns ''Typodermic Fonts'' type foundry, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts. Biography and career Larabie wa ...
has commented that in the 1970s "everyone was modifying Helvetica with funky curls, mixed-case and effects". Indeed, in one 1973 competition to design new fonts, three of the 20 winners were decorative designs inspired by Helvetica.


Zhukov and Kurbatov version

In 1963, two students at the Moscow Print Institute designed their own version of Helvetica, one of whom, Maxim Zhukov, would become one of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
's most prominent typographers. Zhukov and his partner Yuri Kurbatov used upright cursive forms for several of the lowercase letters, which allowed for several of the Helvetica forms to be transferred more directly into Cyrillic. Their version received widespread use in phototypesetting, especially among other students at the Moscow Print Institute, despite never being commercially released. Zhukov and Kurbatov attempted to publish the typeface in 1964 but were rejected due to the font's being too closely associated with
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
; this was one of the major factors as to why an official Cyrillic Helvetica, ''Pragmatica'', would not be released in the
Soviet bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...
until
perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...
in 1989.


Forma (1968)

Created by
Aldo Novarese Aldo Novarese (29 June 1920 – 16 September 1995) was an Italian type designer who lived and worked mostly in Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city ...
at the Italian type foundry Nebiolo, Forma was a geometric-influenced derivative of Helvetica with a 'single-storey' 'a' and extremely tight spacing in the style of the period. It was offered with 'request'
stylistic alternates In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts "Roman" (or "regular ...
imitating Helvetica more closely. Forma has been digitised by
SoftMaker SoftMaker Software GmbH is a German software company based in Nuremberg that produces office productivity software and digital fonts. SoftMaker was founded in 1987 by Martin Kotulla. Best known in Germany and the EU, SoftMaker is offering its ...
as "Formula" and (in a much more complete version with
optical size In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regula ...
s) as Forma DJR by David Jonathan Ross at
Font Bureau The Font Bureau, Inc. or Font Bureau is a digital type foundry based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers. History ...
for ''
Tatler ''Tatler'' (stylised in all caps) is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. It focuses on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics. It is targeted towards the British upper and upper-middle c ...
'' magazine.


Manoptica

Manoptica (1973) was an early effort to adapt Helvetica to the
Thai script The Thai script (, , ) is the abugida used to write Thai language, Thai, Southern Thai language, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai script itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols (, ), 16 vowel s ...
. It is named after and designed by Manop Srisomporn, who designed several typefaces for Thai using the same innovations he used for Manoptica (such as an adaptation of
Eurostile Eurostile is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. Novarese created Eurostile for one of the best-known Italian foundries, Nebiolo, in Turin. Novarese developed Eurostile to succeed the similar Microgramma, which ...
). It was highly influential in Thai typography in that it popularized the removal of the small loops and other flourishes that had theretofore been distinguishing marks on Thai characters and adopted letter forms that bore strong resemblance to Latin letters. It became a widely popular style in advertising and influenced other simplified typefaces for Thai in the following decades. The adoption of loopless typefaces remains a source of controversy in Thai typography.


Helvetica Flair and others

Designed by Phil Martin at Alphabet Innovations, Helvetica Flair is an unauthorised phototype-period redesign of Helvetica adding swashes and
unicase A unicase or unicameral alphabet is a writing script that has no separate cases for its letters. Arabic, Brahmic scripts like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Devanagari, Hebrew, Iberian, Georgian, Chinese, Syriac, Thai and Hangul ar ...
-inspired capitals with a lower-case design. Considered a hallmark of 1970s design, it has never been issued digitally. It is considered to be a highly conflicted design, as Helvetica is seen as a spare and rational typeface and swashes are ostentatious: font designer Mark Simonson described it as "almost sacrilegious". Martin would later claim to have been accused of "typographic incest" by one German writer for creating it. Helvetica Flair was one of several derivative fonts created by Martin in the 1970s (and a particularly legally questionable one, since it was directly named 'Helvetica'). Martin also drew 'Heldustry', a fusion of Helvetica with
Eurostile Eurostile is a geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Aldo Novarese in 1962. Novarese created Eurostile for one of the best-known Italian foundries, Nebiolo, in Turin. Novarese developed Eurostile to succeed the similar Microgramma, which ...
, and 'Helserif', a redesign of Helvetica with
serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...
s, and these have both been digitised.


Shatter LET (1973)

Designed by Vic Carless, Shatter assembles together slices of Helvetica to make a typeface that seems to be in motion, or broken and in pieces. It was published by
Letraset Letraset was a company known mainly for manufacturing sheets of typefaces and other artwork elements using the dry-transfer lettering method. Letraset was acquired by the Colart group and became part of its subsidiary Winsor & Newton. C ...
after jointly winning their 1973 competition to design new fonts. Writing in 2014, Tim Spencer praised the design for its ominous effect, writing that it offered "glitch-like mechanical aggression ndcold, machine-induced paranoia. It attacked the Establishment's preferred information typography style with a sharp edge and recomposed it in a jarring manner that still makes your eyes skitter and your brain tick trying to recompose it. Shatter literally sliced up Swiss modernist authority."


Unica

Unica by ''Team '77'' (André Gürtler, Christian Mengelt and Erich Gschwind) is as a hybrid of Helvetica,
Univers Univers () is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteenth-cen ...
and
Akzidenz-Grotesk Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin in 1898. ' indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine pr ...
. It was developed in the 1970s for electronic on-screen
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of Typesetting, setting type which uses photography to make columns of Sort (typesetting), type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publ ...
and released in 1980. As phototypesetting was soon replaced by desktop publishing and because of a legal dispute, the typeface rapidly disappeared from the market. In mid 2010s, two digital versions were released: the Swiss foundry
Lineto Lineto is a Swiss type foundry founded by Cornel Windlin and Stephan Müller in 1993. In 1998, Lineto launched a website to distribute their fonts digitally. In 2007, Jürg Lehni joined the venture. The most well known fonts on Lineto's catalogue ...
released LL Unica77 with input from Christian Mengelt, while Linotype released Neue Haas Unica.


Chalet

House Industries House Industries is a type foundry and design studio based in Yorklyn, Delaware. The company was created in the 1990s in Wilmington, Delaware by co-founders Andy Cruz and Rich Roat. The company is best known for its typeface creations, which have ...
' Chalet family is a series of fonts based on Helvetica, inspired by its many derivatives and adaptations in post-war design, and organised by "date" to '1960' (conventional), '1970' and '1980' (both more radically altered and "science fiction" in feel). House Industries, who are known for outlandish font marketing methods, promoted Chalet through presenting it as inspired by the branding and career progression of a fictitious Swiss ''haute couture'' designer, "René Chalet" (''Chalet'' being French for a small wooden house, so a play on the design company's name).


Coolvetica

In the digital period, Canadian type designer
Ray Larabie Raymond Larabie (born 1970) is a Canadian designer of TrueType and OpenType computer fonts. He owns ''Typodermic Fonts'' type foundry, which distributes both commercially licensed and shareware/freeware fonts. Biography and career Larabie wa ...
has released several digital fonts based upon Helvetica. The most widely known and distributed of these is Coolvetica, which Larabie introduced in 1999; Larabie stated he was inspired by Helvetica Flair, Chalet, and similar variants in creating some of Coolvetica's distinguishing glyphs (most strikingly a swash on capital 'G', lowercase 'y' based on the letterforms of 'g' and 'u,' and a fully curled lowercase 't'), and chose to set a tight default spacing optimised for use in
display type A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use in display type (display copy) at large sizes for titles, headings, pull quotes, and other eye-catching elements, rather than for extended passages of body text. Display typefaces will ...
. Larabie's company Typodermic offers Coolvetica in a wide variety of weights as a commercial release, with the semi-bold as freeware taster. As of 2017, the semi-bold remains Larabie's most popular font. Larabie has also taken inspiration from Helvetica in some of his other designs, including Movatif and GGX88.


Notes


References

{{Authority control Typefaces and fonts introduced in 1957 Grotesque sans-serif typefaces Neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces Linotype typefaces Typefaces with optical sizes Display typefaces Swiss design