Ha. Thanks for the history. That was pretty interesting. heathenx
Jeff Lasman wrote the following on 4/3/2007 11:24 AM: > On Tuesday 03 April 2007 06:55 am, heathenx wrote: > >> Yup. I just tried Helvetica. It's perfect! I just found my new >> "standard". Thanks everyone. > > Helvetica, developed in 1957 by Swiss graphic designer Max Miedinger, > has been probably the most widely used sans-serif typeface since I was > a teen, and I'm almost 63 now <smile>. It was originally named Neue > Haas Grotesk (from Akzidenz Grotesk, a font designed in 1896) but the > name was changed to Helvetica in 1960. > > Two other Sans Serif fonts which became very popular: > > Univers (pronounced "oo-nih-VAIR") designed by Adrian Frutiger, also > from the original Akzidenz Grotesk. IBM made this font extremely > popular by offering it as the default typeface for their IBM Selectric > Composer system (introduced in 1966), but that probably devalued it's > use among typographers as it became the mark of "cheap typesetting". > (The IBM design was a bit simplified, but still quite similar.) > > And of course, Arial, designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia > Saunders for Monotype Typography. > > According to Wikipedia (from which I refreshed my memory for this post) > claims "It is generally understood that Arial was meant as a cheaper > substitute (but not so close as to invite litigation) for Linotype's > popular Helvetica. However, a close examination of Helvetica, Arial, > and Univers reveals that the latter two are in many respects more > similar than the former two." > > So now that you know more about Helvetica, Arial, and even Univer, than > you ever needed to know, choose the one that looks the best <smile>. > > (In the late 70s I was part owner of a Typography shop in San Mateo, > California, "Helvetica Typographers"; you'd be surprised how many > versions of Helvetica there are <smile>.) > > Jeff
