Nadine Chahine, who works in sales and marketing for Linotype, advises companies on what font to use. When used in adverts, it is a platform for other parts of the message. Helvetica, on the other hand, offers clarity and neutrality. Choose a wacky typeface in your logos or advertising, and turnover may suffer. It's perhaps understandable that corporations don't want to take any typographic risks, bound as they are by the bottom line. Our response would be quite different towards the content." Imagine Shakespeare in large capital drop shadow. Choice of font dictates what you think about something before you even read the first word. It also says bland, unadventurous, unambitious. They want to be a member of no personality. They use Helvetica because they want to be a member of the efficiency club.
"When people choose Helvetica they want to fit in and look normal. Leading graphic designer and typographer Neville Brody, who sparked a spate of Helvetica use with his design for Arena magazine in the 80s, says the typeface represents a safe choice for businesses. They see it as a vehicle for social conformity through consumerism, shifting product with a great big steam-roller of neutrality. Type "I hate Helvetica" into Google and there are forums for people who rage at the mindless "corporate chic" of this dominant font. The typeface's dominance over the past half-century, cemented by the release of Neue Helvetica in the 1980s, has now inspired a documentary, Helvetica, and exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic.īut not everyone is a Helvetica lover. For others, its neutrality is a platform for daring design. The land where clocks run meticulously and the streets are spotless carries the kind of cultural resonance that the logo makers and brand masters of the major corporations might like a bit of. The typeface, inspired by the 1896 font Akzidenz Grotesk, was designed by Max Miedinger in 1957 in conjunction with Eduard Hoffmann for the Haas Type Foundry, in Muenchenstein, Switzerland.Īs Wildenberg notes, its Swissness is part of the appeal.
It has very clear lines and characters, it looks like a very serious typeface," says Frank Wildenberg, managing director of Linotype, the German firm that owns the font. It doesn't have an expression of fashion. The list of brands that use the Swiss typeface - celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - would fill this page. Gap, Orange, Currys, Hoover, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tupperware, Zanussi.
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