Helvetica Forever: Story of a Typeface

If you're a type designer, the chances are you already know about the origins of Helvetica. I purchased a copy in the hope that I could understand Helvetica's past to formulate a response to its increased use in modern times. While it did indeed offer me this, there wasn't much content as I'd have hoped. I believe this book is more style over substance, only half of this book actually discusses Helvetica. The other half is pointless letters sent to and from Hoffmann and Meindinger which, although slightly interesting, feels like I've been cheated out of £5 or so. Even so it was an interesting read if not slightly biased (as predicted with a title of "Helvetica Forever" and the fact that it was produced by Lars Muller Publishers). It discussed the popularity of Univers over Helvetica, but didn't explain the reason behind this; it was simply a much stronger typeface. Although I don't agree with the opinion that Helvetica is perfectly balanced, or "communicates the most fundamental of all swiss traits- neutrality.", it was an interesting read.And by the way, no typeface can ever be neutral ;)

Who would have thought that the development of the world's favourite typeface would provide such a riveting read but it does. The local heroes are designer Max Miedinger encouraged by the Haas type foundry boss Eduard Hoffmann. Despite the availability of several sans faces in the fifties the company wanted to avoid losing market share for their type foundry and the best way to do it was to develop a new face; in a very crowded market.The book reveals the creation of the face with an amazing amount of fascinating detail, fortunately not just with words but plenty of period graphics and sample type settings (using the type founders favourite sample setting word: Hamburger). A real find and reproduced in colour are twenty-seven pages of Hoffmann's personal Journal where he stuck in examples of setting as Miedinger evolved the letter designs. I found it interesting that the only face that was included as a comparison was Berthold's Akzidenz Gotesk (Standard Medium and Bold in English speaking countries) which, in display sizes, was the first type of choice for 'Swiss school' designers, even though there were only two weights and no italic.There is an intriguing chapter called A Comparison by Indra Kupferschimd, which looks at all the before and after Helvetica faces and you'll be surprised at how many there were. The success of the face, from 1957 onwards, persuaded several type founders to 'Helveticise' their fonts by changing a, c, e, s, t and cap equivalents to look as much as possible like the real thing.The book is nicely produced in the typical Swiss style though that does mean unfortunately that tiny type has to be used somewhere and in this case it's the extensive captions and notes: 6.5 point seems too small to me for ease of reading.Designers and type fans will enjoy the story of a face that is reliable, practical, neutral and with some very sexy letters.

This book covers everything you could possibly imaging about a typeface which has defined Swiss typography for over 50 years, and then some.A must have for all Helvetica fans and indeed lovers of Swiss type in general. And the feel of the book is fantastic, a woven cover with heat treated vinyl lettering.