Helvetica is all over the world

Part of the global success enjoyed by Helvetica was attributed to the reputation enjoyed by Swiss designers at the time. Swiss design was synonymous with excellence, precision and functionality.

When on location in Germany, you may are surprised how prominent the font ist there. Helvetica is also popular in its home country, particularly in Zurich, where you can see it everywhere from stations to trams and buses, road and shop signs. Helvetica is clear and simple, which might explain its worldwide appeal. Whether in advertising, on menus, for street or railway signage, in London, Milan, Berlin, Tokyo or New York – the Helvetica typeface is an all-time favourite among the multitudes of codes, signals and signs that flavour modern life.

Especially in the 1970s Helvetica became a corporate identity star among companies. Organisations such as the Migros supermarket chain and the Swiss Federal Railways chose Helvetica for their public appearance.

Swiss design with a worldwide reputation

The success of this typeface, designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger, can also be attributed to the fact that Swiss design gained a brilliant reputation worldwide in the 1960s and ‘70s. Swiss design was a synonym for excellent, clear and functional design. In addition to Helvetica, two other fonts, Univers and Frutiger, also rose to fame.
A few years ago, Swiss art book publisher Lars Müller paid homage to Helvetica. “I sing honour to the Helvetica typeface and its forgotten creator…”, he writes in the introduction to his book about the design icon.

In 1957, Swiss typographer Max Miedinger (1910-1980) was commissioned by his former employer, Haas'schen Typesetters, to design a new font. A German company then took it on. It was originally marketed as Haas-Grotesk but rebranded as Helvetica - derived from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland - in 1960. German typesetters D. Stempel issued a revamped version in 1983 called New Helvetica.Today, there are more than a dozen variations in the Helvetica font family.The Arial font was «copied» from Helvetica and is now used by millions of people who use Microsoft systems on their computers. The difference is minimal and only experts can tell the two apart.(swissinfo, March 30, 2007)