If you go to a subway station, you may encounter signs like that one on top. And the cool part is that the font that they’re using is called Helvetica. It’s the most favorite typeface that most people (even companies) use for corporate logos, signs, print, and much more. But have you wondered how it became overrated?
Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger together with Eduard Hoffmann in 1957. They aim to create a typeface that implies clarity in a font. Inspired by the success of Univers, it spontaneously became popular. Because of its popularity, it changed the typography game forever.
In 1965, the typeface company, Amsterdam Continental Types Inc. started using Helvetica rather than their almost a similar font, Akzidenz-Grotesk. In the late ’70s and the ’80s, Linotype commissioned this typeface to big brands like Xerox, Apple, and Adobe, to name a few.
It became an essential typeface in digital printing. Sadly, both of them passed away in 1980 but this simplistic font still lives on forever.
Let’s take a close look at this typeface. Behind this is that its minimalistic design creates a beautiful expression of modernism. This is why it’s clean and very simple and it creates a huge part of the breakthrough story of this typeface.
The reasons why its the most attractive and elegant typeface are as follows:
As you can see, these are the features of Helvetica but there will be a slight problem with readability, so don’t shrink it too small in your work.
Helvetica’s popularity keeps growing but to expand its popularity, a huge number of variants have been released.