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Helvetica forever: Story of a Typeface Hardcover – February 27, 2009
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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.
- Print length159 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLars Müller Publishers
- Publication dateFebruary 27, 2009
- Dimensions7.19 x 0.75 x 9.69 inches
- ISBN-103037781211
- ISBN-13978-3037781210
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About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Lars Müller Publishers; 1st edition (February 27, 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 159 pages
- ISBN-10 : 3037781211
- ISBN-13 : 978-3037781210
- Item Weight : 1.45 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.19 x 0.75 x 9.69 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,286,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #448 in Typography (Books)
- #1,292 in Architectural Drafting & Presentation
- #10,991 in Art History & Criticism (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Top reviews from the United States
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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.
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2009
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.
Top reviews from other countries
And by the way, no typeface can ever be neutral ;)











