Helvetica is a typeface de- veloped by Max Miedinger in 1957 for the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei type foundry of Switzerland. Its name is Of course, sans serif prolif- derived from Helvetia, the eration was also due to the Roman name for Switzerland. higher demand for display The font is based on the ear- typefaces in all media, the lier Akzidenz Grotesk typeface demand which is much more from around 1898.Akzidenz severe than at any time in the Grotesk, also referred to as past.The most natural use Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk or of a sans serif font is still for Odd-job Sansserif, is a real- display purposes (ads, titles, ist sans-serif typeface devel- logos, labels of all sorts). oped by the H. Berthold Berlin Akzidenz is often mistaken Typefoundry in 1896. for Helvetica, even by expe- rienced or famous graphic The typeface, originally titled designers.The similarities of Haas-Grotesk, is a very clean Helvetica and Akzidenz are sans-serif face.The typeface apparent, but the subtle differ- became extremely popular in ences include the uppercase the 1960s, when it was widely and lowercase “C”, and the used. In 1983, Linotype re- uppercase “G”, “J”, “R”, and leased the Helvetica Neue “Q”. Aside from the subtle (German for “New Helvetica”) differences in these individual typeface, based on Helvetica. letters, Miedinger’s primary change to Akzidenz is Helveti- ca’s higher “X-height”, the dis- tance from the baseline to the height of the lowercase letter “x”. The general effect is that a Helvetica appears more ob- long while Akzidenz maintains circular counters and bowls. Max Miedinger Helvetica a Akzidenz.