Helvetica The Movie
Helvetica at 50
- Neil Custard
In 1957, the Haas font foundry set Max Meidinger the task of updating the company’s flagship sans serif typeface, Haas Grotesk. Rather than merely tweaking the existing face, Meidinger completely redesigned the font, setting the foundations for what would become the most revered typeface in modern history.
Helvetica, as it would become known, has been described as ‘the Kate Moss of fonts, ultra-thin, misunderstood and plastered all over the tabloids’. Sharing column inches with the glitterati on the pages of Vogue and filling air-time on BBC 1, the storm created by Helvetica’s 50th anniversary has been notable. Now the subject of a film by acclaimed director Gary Hustwit, Helvetica has been lofted from its humble beginnings and has now grown to symbolise more than just the ideals of Swiss modernist design it so eloquently represents. Helvetica has become a brand, an industry and even a lifestyle.
The subsequent popularity of Helvetica has grown exponentially over the decades and, unparalleled by other faces, it has a ubiquitous presence in the contemporary visual landscape. With over 100 different cuts, variations and weights, it can be found everywhere, from signs, to logos, posters to packaging. Helvetica is undeniably the most versatile font of the modern age and has been used as the spokesman for regimes of both capitalism and socialism, straddling these two extremes with effortless ease.
Once the preserve of specialist printers, type and type-setting became an accessible art-form with the advent of the digital design era. In 1984 Apple Computers – the choice of most graphic designers – licensed Helvetica for use on all its machines. Helvetica’s success and popularity within the design community can be attributed to this act. The font was so popular, other manufactures tried to follow suit and in 1992 Microsoft commissioned the design of Arial as its default system font. To the untrained eye, the two are very similar, however it was Helvetica’s versatility and flexibility which appealed to many. In what is considered to be a tacit acknowledgment of Arial’s inferiority, Microsoft’s own corporate identity is written in Helvetica.
Often used to distil design to just its elements, Helvetica has become the signature of a modern design aesthetic, used where ideas, messages and meaning are key. The face – unlike any other – can be used to reinforce high-brow, complex design strategies (such as those intensively pitched by marketeers and advertising creatives the world over) whilst equally being used to express the ‘absence of design’ with its uncanny mutability.
However, as contemporary tastes (and by association the design industries) move away from the lifeless, minimalist aesthetics (leather cube anyone?) has Helvetica run its course? The hard lines, stark interiors and minimal corporate identities associated with the latest brand of modernism are now giving way to richer, more sumptuous interior design schemes, printed materials and indeed, typefaces. Serif fonts are experiencing somewhat of a resurgence, as brands strive to appear more personable, in what is fast becoming a increasingly homogenised market place. The need for richness and luxury is also encouraging many designers to seek solace in the character of the serif typeface, using ligatures and embellishments to bring layers of complexity to their work.
Should exponents of Helvetica be worried by this current trend in visual communication? As a patriarch of the modernist aesthetic, and with so much history in its wake, I think not. Whether we like it or not, Helvetica will remain a powerful weapon in the arsenal of those who shape our visual landscape and it will continue to fit seamlessly into our lives, like gravity or air. •
