Helvetica notes

HELVETICA

Typefaces give text a colour, a personality

Vignelli: It's the space between the black, the white that 'makes the music'
Type doesn't have to be expressive

Post war- social responsibility among young designers, the modernist period, emergence of swiss style striving for idealism where Helvetica emerges as there was a need for national typefaces

"Creating order is typography" Nick? uses his own grid systems, he bought a computer in the 80s and began working digitally very late on. You can't do better designs on a computer, you can just work faster.
Helvetica was a more machined typeface, a more neutral font , it shouldn't have a meaning itself; its in the content of the text, not in the typeface itself.

Type designer: Flat edges of the typeface terminals appear 'perfect', he could never "second guess Helvetica".

Mike Parker: Interrelationship of the negative space, the swiss payed more attention to the spaces between letter - "It's a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space"

Eduard Hoffman: Original Helvetica designer, Stempel was the organisation. The original name for Helvetica was originally named: Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei
Helvetic: Latin name of Switzerland
Helvetica : The Swiss Typeface

America: Corporate identity of the 60s included wiping 'goofy' typography and replacing it with Helvetica, he explains how
governments and corporations love Helvetica as the smoothness of the letters make them appear human and accessible as well as clean and efficient.
Overused so much in the 70s particularly it becomes merely routine.

Helvetica has its appeal as its so versatile and doesn't 'say' anything so its subjective.

Erik Epiekermann, Germany: Helvetica has no rhythm or contrast however now it's so default on the Apple mac and Windows and the evolution of the computer has made this default, we have no choice anymore. It needs a lot of space, to get this spacing it's a 'nightmare' as the designer tried to make all the letters look the same, it becomes 'like an army, not people'.

The way something is presented defines the way you'll react to it. In advertising this is most relevant

Lars Muller: Typeface of socialism as its available all over and invites dilettantes and amateurs to create their own type design. Something you don't notice but something we would miss if it wasn't there, the more the designer uses a type ultimately the more dull it becomes.

Paula Scher: Two separate cultures of design: corporate culture, clean, Helvetica.
Morally opposed to Helvetica as it signified being a sponsor of the Vietnam war. She then went onto use drawn type; without previously realising: "Type has spirit and can create mood, a broad pallet to express all kinds of things".

Stefan Sagmeister: Then designers were desperate to get away from Helvetica, it became boring and confirmative. Created his own types, one carved into skin.

David Carson: Raygun magazine, the typography was completely experimental. Grunge typography. He had no prior training so just did what he thought looked good with no idea of the rules of typography. This is more "interesting exciting and emotional". Dingbat used for a boring article, not worth reading , badly written.
"Just 'cus somethings legible doesn't mean it communicates, send a different message valuable for where its being used."

Type so broken after the grunge period after the late 90s, so designers return back to an old way of designing with a new set of theories to support it.

Type designer: Disagree its the superficial superficial way, many people connect Helvetica with globalisation but he's not afraid of this at all, as we can all put a twist on it using variations of kerning.

Micael C Place: Making something beautiful out of something very ordinary, it's all about an emotional response. Enjoys the challenge of making Helvetica speak in a different way.

Manuel Krebs & Dimitri Bruni: We like restrictions, inspired by Carlson then Swiss typography, they aimed to look further back and look at structure of design. Dislike humanistic typefaces as these contain too much expression. Helvetica itself has a certain style an aesthetic, you will do what the typeface wants you to do and use it in a specific way.

10 Key Points about Helvetica

- "Just 'cus somethings legible doesn't mean it communicates"- David Carson
- "Type has spirit and can create mood, a broad pallet to express all kinds of things"- Paula Cher
- Timeless
- Neutral, efficient, rational
- Horizontal Terminals appear 'perfect'
- Negative Space
- Omnipresent: Something you don't notice but something we would miss if it wasn't there, the more the designer uses a type ultimately the more dull it becomes.
- Modernism
- Typeface of Socialism- Lars Muller
- Companies fighting against Helvetica as it's own brand