But this was changed to Helvetica [Helvetica being part of the Latin name for Switzerland] to make it more appealing outside, German speaking, Switzerland.
Two years later Letraset was founded in London and by 1960 it was producing the dry transfer lettering, with which is name is synonymous, and which allowed designers to break the shackles of cold metal type, shake off the chains of hot metal type and go round corners with relative ease. Helvetica together with Letraset was a powerful tool in the shaping of new typographic thinking.
In the early eighties when Microsoft wanted a typeface for it’s word processing software they approached Hass for the Helvetica typeface but Hass weren’t interested. Microsoft sulked, and threw a few toys out the pram before going round to Monotype where together they developed Arial. Arial to most people is indistinguishable from Helvetica, which is a shame because Helvetica is fonts ahead of Arial.
There was a lot of angry mutterings in the graphic studios of the Western World, the graphics studios in the Eastern World couldn’t give a fuck, they were too busy trying to get a typewriter that could operate with their complicated pictographic system:
Designers felt Microsoft and Monotype had just ripped off Helvetica, what with Arial’s glyph widths being almost identical to Helvetica’s and the fact that, to most people, they were indistinguishable.
How to tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial:
2 comments:
So Helvetica's a bit more - well - stylish, but I have no verbiage at my disposal that would describe why.
A good job the info about the Helvetica documentary isn't in Times New Roman - - or Arial - -
What eh? Microsoft wanted to muscle in and Mr Helvetica said balls to you? So they made their own? Well it's a shot copy that's all I can say. I mean, if you know what you're looking for, Helvetica is almost a SERIF typeface! Oh yes. Don't believe me? Try me!
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