It's been
used by brands such as American Airlines, Panasonic and Toyota. It's all over
the signage in the New York City subway system. Even Google, Apple and Netflix
used it for a time.
Helvetica
is ubiquitous around the world.
Now, after
36 years, the widely used — and widely controversial — font is getting a
makeover.
The upgrade
was designed by the the Massachusetts type giant Monotype, which controls
licensing for Helvetica. The company has updated each of Helvetica's 40,000
characters for the digital age, offering three new sizes designed to work on
everything from billboards to the tiny screens of a smart watch. The updated
font even has a new name: "Helvetica Now."
Like many
changes, though, some people are skeptical.
"If
I'm perfectly honest, my first reaction was, do we need another
Helvetica?" says Charles Nix, type director at Monotype.
The altered
typeface became a trending topic on Twitter.
"Half
the people were like, 'Awesome. It's dead. Finally! I'm so glad it's gone. It's
the worst,' " Mitch Goldstein, a design professor at the Rochester
Institute of Technology, says. "And
the other half of the people were like, 'Helvetica is incredible. It
will never die.' "
So why is
Helvetica such a polarizing typeface?
"Helvetica
is one of those typefaces that you love or hate," graphic designer Sarah
Hyndman explains. "You either use it all the time, it's become a staple,
or you feel like you've grown out of it, and it's a little bit too
ubiquitous."
"There
are lots of foibles in Helvetica like the way the letters space," she
says. "The letter 'L'looks too much like the number '1'."
Helvetica
was not the most versatile font in the toolbox, admits Nix. Now, he says,
that's all changed.
"Helvetica
was seldom used for captions and small text because it was a little cramped,"
he says. "Instead of being micro-challenged, we've made it like a
micro-champion. So when you set captions in the new version of Helvetica, it
really sings."
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