History of Design: Helvetica Screening

Typefaces are seen everywhere, but the one that is seen the most is Helvetica.
The type has better eligibility.
It’s modern and clear.
1950s, interesting period in the world of graphic design. A real feeling of idealism.
High modernist period.
1957, Helvetica emerges where there’s felt to be a need for rationale typefaces, which can be applied to all kinds of contemporary information, whether it’s sign systems or corporate identity, and present those visual expressions of the modern world to the public in an intelligible, legible way.
Clarity, it should be clear, readable, and straightforward.
Creating order is typography.
Helvetica was a real step from the 19^th century typeface.
It was more neutral, the meaning is not in the typeface, but in the text.
Most characteristic design of Helvetica is the horizontal terminals.
Eduard Hoffman wished to make a modernized version of the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk, which was a traditional 19^th century sans serif.
Max Miedinger was the designer of Helvetica.
Haas was controlled by German Typefoundry Stempel, which was controlled by Linotype.
Linotype owned the Haas and Stempel foundries, and now owns Helvetica.
Stempel suggested Helvetia, the latin name of Switzerland.
Eduard Hoffman thought it was ridiculous to name a font after a country so Helvetica was then suggested.
Once the font was introduced, it ran away.
Businesses liked Helvetica because the smoothness of the letters made them almost seem human.
The way the message is dressed is going to define our reaction to that message.
Is the typeface of socialism cause it’s available everywhere.
By the 70’s, conformity, dull blanket of sameness, and there was a need for change.
Pushpin studios, fresh, alive, and witty.
Typography can have personality like drawings, it could move and be your own medium.
Post-modern period, designers were breaking things up to get away from the clean design and produce something that had vitality.
Just because something is legible doesn’t mean it communicates.
Something that may be initially difficult to read may be sending a completely different message that is valid for where it’s being used and it may require a little more time or the involvement of the reader.
Thin line between something that’s simple, clean, and powerful and something that’s simple, clean, and boring.
Grunge Period in typography was popular for maybe four or five years.
Typography was so broken by the end of the Grunge Period, just lying in a twisted heap, with all rules cast aside, that all those designers could perhaps do by the end of the late 90’s was return to an earlier way of designing, but with a new set of theories to support it.
Appreciation for typeface is changing.