Sans Serif Part Deux! 1957 Neue Haas Grotesk Back when Helvetica was still called Neue Haas Grotesk . a French type foundry, Deberny & Peignot, hired Adrian Frutiger to design a font they hoped would be new and revolutionary: Univers. The grand days of geometric Futura were fading away and Europe was ready for a new look. Enter . Adrian Frutiger Univers The BEST Typeface in the World Univers abcdefghijkl mnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 univers a a helvetica univers e e helvetica smoothness harmony uniformity chilly scientific Westminster street signs Paris Métro info signs Univers is public information: you will see it in outdoor signage: in London where Westminster adopted Univers Bold Condensed for its street signs; it’s perfect for clean information graphics: Munich chose it as the face of its 1972 Olympics; for transportation: the Paris Métro, the Mondréal Métro and the San Francisco BART all use Univers; Rand McNally and Ordinance Survey maps use Univers; Apple keyboards once used Univers until they turned to VAG Rounded in 2007. San Francisco BART signage Vag Rounded Frutiger abcdefghijkl mnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 univers frutiger Frutiger, the font, is not one that Americans tend to know much about. You might have hearda of it or you might have even had occasion to use it if you are a designer of information graphics but, in general, it is not useda much in the states. Frutiger (the font) was designed almost 30 years after Adrian Frutiger designed Univers. When Frutiger created Univers he was 28 and perhaps a little nervous having such a large commission. The perfection of Univers can come across, to some, as rigid and strict while Frutiger is relaxed and more human. univers e e frutiger from univers to frutiger Frutiger Relaxed Human ABCDEFG HIJKLMNOP QRSTUV WXYZ Frutiger was originally designed for Roissy Airport in the early 1970s before it was renamed Paris Charles de Gaulle. As airport signage it had to look clear and concise on boards and signs with different background colors, it had to be legible from far away. It had to be something you saw, registered as not awful—perhaps even a bit helpful, and then, moving on, you felt sure of yourself and your destination. Apparently if you’re in Europe it is hard to avoid but here in the states we just can’t let go of our Swiss friend . helvetica Max Miedinger Eduard Hoffmann Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland. Their intentions were to create a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the successful Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. As I said before, it was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk and the goal of the designers for this typeface was to create something that was “neutral, with great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.” Now, after the success of Univers, Neue Haas Grotesk was reworked into a larger family of typefaces. In 1960, the typeface’s name was changed to Helvetica in order to make it more marketable internationally. It was initially suggested that the type be called ‘Helvetia’ which is the original Latin name for Switzerland. This was ignored by Eduard Hoffmann as he decided it wouldn’t be appropriate to name a type after a country. He then decided on ‘Helvetica’ as this meant ‘Swiss’ as opposed to ‘Switzerland’. Helvetica abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 helvetica a univers a frutiger a helvetica e univers e frutiger e Cyrus Highsmith How often do you see Helvetica in one day? Do you think you can go a day without seeing it? Type designer Cyrus Highsmith tried to do just that: He ran an informal experiment: to avoid the typeface Helvetica for a full day. He banned himself from buying anything branded in that font and from traveling on any form of transport with Helvetica signage. As he’s a New Yorker, that included the local subway system. If he happened to come across anything in the typeface, he would look away. Not so hard, right? Wrong. Helvetica cropped up much more often than Mr. Highsmith had expected. He knew to avoid the Internet, and had taken the precautionary measure of erasing Helvetica from the font menu on his computer. But he hadn’t reckoned on spotting it on the washing instruction labels of his clothes, his television remote control, a bus timetable or the stock market tables in The New York Times. Another problem was finding a Helvetica-free way of paying for whatever he needed to buy during the day, as the forbidden typeface not only appeared on his credit cards but on the newest U.S. dollar bills. After a long day of trying to avoid Helvetica he posed the question: “Do you need type to live?” The answer of course is no, not in the way one needs food and water. But do you need Helvetica to conduct contemporary urban activity? That’s harder to answer. Named for the the prolific American printer, Benjamin Franklin, this font was designed in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. Notice the word, “Gothic” here instead of “Grotesque.” This is another increasingly archaic term meaning “sans serif.” 1902! Wow, that was a long time ago, and so far before the geometrics and the other neo-grotesques like Futura, Helvetica, Frutiger, and Univers. It was chugging along just fine in its time but then around the 1930s it’s popularity was eclipsed by the new European fonts. It didn’t stay down for long though and has been back in regular use ever since the early 1950s. franklin gothic Franklin Gothic Designed by Morris Fuller Benton 1902 helvetica a univers a frutiger a franklin gothic a gill sansa futura a helvetica e univers e frutiger e franklin gothic e gill sanse futura e helvetica g univers g frutiger g franklin gothic g futura g kabelg gill sansg azkidenz groteskg helveticaQ univers Q frutiger Q franklin gothic Q futura Q kabel Q gill sans Q akzidenz groteskQ kabel futura i univers igill sans i frutiger gotham i ifranklin gothic i iakzidenz grotesk i ?akzidenz grotesk ?kabel ?futura akzidenz! grotesk !kabel !futura ? ? ! ! gill sans franklin gothic ?univers gill Sans franklin gothic !univers ? ! ?frutiger gotham !frutiger gotham Gotham was created in 2000 by Hoefler & Frere-Jones (the designers, also, of the Didot revival used in Harper’s Bazaar which we talked about last week) for the men’s magazine GQ. They were told to create something “masculine, new, and fresh.” As the story goes type designer Tobias Frere-Jones walked around the city taking pictures, recording, not just for this commission but also for himself, every interesting letter or sign block south of 14th street. Apparently he took over 3500 pictures. His goal was not just to find inspiration for this new commission but also to preserve what he saw as a dying artfrom: REAL SIGNS with REAL LETTERING, not just something spat out using a default typeface from your computer. One of his main influences for Gotham was the seemingly plain, geometric lettering from New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. geometrygotham geometryfutura geometrykabel geometryhelvetica geometryunivers In drawing Gotham, Frere-Jones seems to have done two things: he created a geometric- looking typeface, yet he also applied human warmth to it allowing the letters to escape the grid wherever necessary. Doing this gave the type an interesting and distinctly American flavor. It is clearly NOT Swiss or German. The starkness of Univers does not exist here. I can see geometry within this typeface but it does not seem as mathy as Futura or Erbar. gotham futura akzidenz grotesk interstate helvetica Interestingly New York’s MTA did not start off with Helvetica. It was not adopted as the official font for signage until 1989. The standard font from 1970 until 1989 was Standard Medium, an Akzidenz Grotesk-like sans-serif. Helvetica Standard Medium ALL OTHER TYPEFACES SUCK. Helvetica. Killing it since 1957 franklin gothic.