Helvetica Max Meidinger, 1957 elvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Helvetica is among the most widely Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas type foundry) of used sans-serif typefaces. Versions Variations Münchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif exist for the following alphabets/scripts: typeface that could compete with Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Japa- market. Originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk, it was created based on Schel- nese, Korean, Hindi, Urdu, Khmer and Hter-Grotesk. The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had Vietnamese. Chinese faces have been great clarity, had no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide developed to complement Helvetica. variety of signage. When Linotype adopted the Neue Haas Grotesk (which was never planned to be Helvetica is a popular choice for com- a full range of mechanical and hot-metal typefaces) its design was reworked. After mercial wordmarks, including those for Wordmarks the success of Univers, Arthur Ritzel of Stempel redesigned Neue Haas Grotesk 3M, American Airlines, American Ap- into a larger family. parel, AT&T, BMW, Jeep, JCPenney, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Orange, Toyota, Panasonic, Motorola, Kawasaki and Verizon Wireless. A neutral typeface with Apple Inc. has used Helvetica widely in Mac OS X, the iPhone OS, and the iPod. Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal no intrinsic meaning. income tax forms are set in Helvetica, and NASA uses the type on the Space In 1960, the typeface’s name was changed by Haas’ German parent company Shuttle orbiter. Helvetica is also used in Stempel to Helvetica (derived from Confoederatio Helvetica, the Latin name for the United States television rating sys- Switzerland) in order to make it more marketable internationally. It was initially tem. suggested that the type be called ‘Helvetsia’ 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’. Regular Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Bold Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Oblique Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Bold Oblique 0123456789 ?!@#$%^&*() New York City’s Metropolitan Trans- Helvetica on its signage for the Chica- portation Authority (MTA) uses Hel- go ‘L’. The former state owned operator Signage vetica for many of its subway signs. of the British railway system developed But Helvetica was not adopted as the its own Helvetica-based Rail Alphabet official font for signage until 1989. The font, which was also adopted by the standard font from 1970 until 1989 National Health Service and the British Max Meidinger Airports Authority. Additionally, it was also adopted by Danish railway com- pany DSB for a time period. Canada’s Max Meidinger federal government uses Helvetica as its identifying typeface, with three vari- Max Miedinger (December 24, Between 1926 and 1930, Max became a customer counselor ants being used in its corporate iden- 1910 in Zurich, Switzerland - was trained as a typesetter in and typeface sales representa- tity program, and encourages its use in March 8, 1980, Zurich, Swit- Zurich, after which he attended tive for the Haas’sche Schrift- all federal agencies and websites. The zerland) was a Swiss typeface evening classes at the Kunst- gießerei in Münchenstein near was Standard Medium, an Akzidenz designer. He was famous for gewerbeschule in Zurich. Basle, until 1956, where he be- Grotesk-like sans-serif, as defined by creating Helvetica in 1957. Mar- came a freelance graphic artist Unimark’s New York City Transit Au- Helvetica keted as a symbol of cutting- Later, he became a typographer in Zurich. edge Swiss technology, Helvet- for Globus department store’s thority Graphic Standards Manual. The Max Miedinger MTA system is still rife with a prolifera- ica went global at once. advertising studio in Zurich, and tion of Helvetica-like fonts, including 1 9 5 7 Arial, in addition to some old remaining signs in Medium Standard, and a few logo and graphic identity of the “Metro” anomalous signs in Helvetica Narrow. (Underground) in Madrid are Helvetica The Chicago Transit Authority uses Regular and Helvetica Neue..