Helvetica forever: Story of a Typeface [Hardcover]

Victor Malsy (Editor), Lars Müller (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2009

Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of Swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. The balanced and neutral appearance of Helvetica forgoes a high degree of expressivity a quality for which it is both criticized and admired. This polarization has helped to gain it unparalleled notoriety. Helvetica is far and away the most widely used of all typefaces; according to a survey by the Berliner Fontshop-Archiv, it tops the list of the hundred best fonts of all time. This publication retraces Helvetica s fifty-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the twentieth century, and examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread. Numerous illustrations show a multitude of ways the font has been used in five decades from a wide variety of fields from signal design to party flyers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lars Müller was born in Oslo 1955 and has been living in Switzerland since 1963. After doing his apprenticship as a graphic designer, and years of apprenticeship and travel in the USA and Holland, he opened a studio in Baden in 1982. In 1983, Lars Müller began publishing books on typography, design, art photography, and architecture.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 159 pages
• Publisher: Lars Muller Verlag; 1 edition (February 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3037781211
• ISBN-13: 978-3037781210
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,005 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Hamburgers of Helvetica, November 13, 2009

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Helvetica forever: Story of a Typeface (Hardcover)

Who would have thought that the development of the world's favorite typeface would provide such a riveting read but it does. The local heroes are designer Max Miedinger encouraged by the Haas type foundry boss Eduard Hoffmann. Despite the availability of several sans faces in the fifties the company wanted to avoid losing market share for their type foundry and the best way to do it was to develop a new face, in a very crowded sans market.

The book reveals the creation of the face with an amazing amount of fascinating detail, fortunately not just with words but plenty of period graphics and sample type settings (in the type founders favorite word foe sample setting: Hamburger). A real find and reproduced in color are twenty-seven pages of Hoffmann's personal Journal where he stuck in examples of setting as Miedinger evolved the letter designs. I found it interesting that the only face that was included as a comparison was Berthold's Akzidenz Gotesk (Standard Medium and Bold in English speaking countries) which, in display sizes, was the first type of choice for 'Swiss school' designers even though it only had two weights and no italic.

There is an intriguing chapter called A Comparison by Indra Kupferschimd, which looks at all the before and after Helvetica faces and you'll be surprised at how many there were. The success of the face, from 1957 onwards, persuaded several type founders to 'Helveticize' their fonts by changing a, c, e, s, t and cap equivalents to look as much as possible like the real thing.

The book is nicely produced in the typical Swiss style though that does mean unfortunately that tiny type has to be used somewhere and in this case it's the extensive captions and notes: 6.5 point seems too small to me for ease of reading.

Designers and type fans will enjoy the story of a face that is reliable, practical, neutral and with some very sexy letters.

***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.