During the mid-1950s a man by the name Edouard Hoffman, who was part of the HAAS type foundry, strived to create a more modern type based off the Akzidenz Grotesk fonts. He felt they needed to be updated and refined, so Hoffman worked with Max Miedinger, who crafted the designs of their Grotesque sans serif typeface. When it first came out it was introduced as ‘Neue Haas Grotesk’. In Germany during 1961 a company named D. Stempel AG produced the type under the name ‘Helvetica’, which was the Latin word for Switzerland. Helvetica became widely popular due to its well defined-forms and neutrality. It has been considered the Swiss International Style. During the 1960’s through the 1980s, Helvetica has been refined and given more weights by the company Linotype. Due to its popularity it has spawned many imitators, one being Arial created by Monotype for IBM. They both use the same character widths, which has caused them to be widely used for Mac’s and PC’s. Helvetica is still popular, and loved today by many designers.
Max Miedinger designed the Helvetica typeface. He was born in Zurich in 1910. Around the late 1920’s he started to train as a typesetter and eventually went to go work for Edouard Hoffmann. Hoffman was the director of the HAAS Typefoundry. When Max first started working there he was a salesman, but the designer in him pushed him to create a sans serif typeface during his free time. He created the Typeface Haas Grotesk, which we now know as Helvetica. HAAS partners, D. Stempel AG and Linotype expanded this design and really took it to the next level. Miedinger was paid a stipend for his contribution to their success, which was a very uncommon practice at the time. He later died in 1980.
My Concept:
When I think of Helvetica I think about how much we see it in our corporate world and everyday lives. I always associate it with a very modern lifestyle. So for my book, I was thinking about focusing on a company that uses it and is widely recognizable, Apple Inc. I was picturing making it the style of iPhone Apps or an iPod play list. For example if it was the iPod idea, I would have the “Artists” be the Designers, the “Songs” be the different weights and styles, and so on. It still is a rough concept but I feel like it could work. Maybe if I lay out the pages the way you would see if you were listening to your Ipod, with the Album artwork being a particular weight or style (boxed in), and all the other info is there for it to the right of it. Let me know what you think, I hope I am not missing the idea of the book here.
Sosa, interesting design approach. I would look at the manuals that come with iPods and macs. They are the same square format that we are using. It may be interesting to totally mimic one of those but incorporate the info in screen shots demonstrating something. Like how to navigate with your iPod. Then show the artist list as a font list. Etc. Good concept and research.
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