4 ms·

I enjoyed learning the cultural context from which Helvetica emerged. In particular, I remember one man talking about how in the early 1900s, a company’s letter

I enjoyed learning the cultural context from which Helvetica emerged. In particular, I remember one man talking about how in the early 1900s, a company’s letterhead might have a floral font proclaiming The Inimitable Widgets, Gadgets, and Sprongdonacle Corporation of the Empire State. Then Helvetica comes along, and the company’s letterhead becomes Widgets Co. The same clean look mirrored in Mid-Century Modern and the Space Age. I do wish the film had more details about the form of the font itself. E.g. explain the anatomy of a font, the choices made about the various parts, why subtle differences between Helvetica and Arial have significant impacts, etc. If anyone knows a good source of that kind of information, I would love to hear of it.

082349872349872 6y ago
That's the optimistic angle; the pessimistic is that Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party. (Helvetia itself gained a fourth national language in 1938, due to comments made by someone who made his trains run on time; the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the involuntary pleasure of hosting, etc. etc.) Maria Ivanova tells her class at the end of the day that they should find out what their ancestors did during the Great Patriotic War. The next morning, she calls on little Johnny. He says "My great-great-grandfather was electrician: his helmet had two lightning bolts..." Edit: added involuntary, for clarity. Neemt u me niet kwalijk.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  > the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the pleasure of hosting Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting what exactly?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - maayank 6y ago
    > Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting what exactly? Hosted a party! In seriousness though, s/he refers to the German occupation of the Netherlands in WW2.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      Luckily that was a long time ago, and those sorts of politics have been discredited for a good portion of a century. These days we are all excellent to each other and party on. (if you're ready to party, here's some dutch cultural appropriation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y )
- Nitramp 6y ago
  That is a common misconception. The Nazis initially did not particularly emphasize the use of Fraktur (it was a mixed message), and in 1941 Hitler decided to standardize on Antiqua fonts for all printing. (And modern Grotesks such as Helvetica are based on Antiqua)
- weinzierl 6y ago
  > Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party. Helvetica was developed in 1957 in Switzerland. This was a time when pretty much the only text still printed in blackletter typefaces (like Fraktur) were newspaper mastheads. Outside of Germany blackletter was dead long before that time, and even in Germany it died much earlier. The so called "gothic" typefaces (to which Fraktur belongs) were ultimately banned in early 1941 there. So the success of Helvetica has nothing to do with Fraktur. If you ask me its success is based on its on own inherent qualities, combined with a portion of luck.
- aasasd 6y ago
  > use of Fraktur by a certain european political party You mean how Nazi abolished Fraktur along with Kurrentschrift? > On January 3, 1941, Martin Bormann issued a circular to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use. > “In a hundred years, our language will be the European language. The nations of the east, the north and the west will, to communicate with us, learn our language. The prerequisite for this: The script called Gothic is replaced by the script we have called Latin so far.” (Hitler's declaration in the Reichstag, 1934)
  - aasasd 6y ago
    To clarify, Nazis did flip their position on Fraktur, and before '41 Antiqua was criticized as ‘Jewish’ just as well. But since the whole country used Fraktur for ages before the ban, associating it with Nazis is ridiculous.
deleted 6y ago
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082349872349872 6y ago

That's the optimistic angle; the pessimistic is that Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party. (Helvetia itself gained a fourth national language in 1938, due to comments made by someone who made his trains run on time; the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the involuntary pleasure of hosting, etc. etc.) Maria Ivanova tells her class at the end of the day that they should find out what their ancestors did during the Great Patriotic War. The next morning, she calls on little Johnny. He says "My great-great-grandfather was electrician: his helmet had two lightning bolts..." Edit: added involuntary, for clarity. Neemt u me niet kwalijk.

Fnoord 6y ago
> the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the pleasure of hosting Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting what exactly?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- maayank 6y ago
  > Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting what exactly? Hosted a party! In seriousness though, s/he refers to the German occupation of the Netherlands in WW2.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    Luckily that was a long time ago, and those sorts of politics have been discredited for a good portion of a century. These days we are all excellent to each other and party on. (if you're ready to party, here's some dutch cultural appropriation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y )
Nitramp 6y ago
That is a common misconception. The Nazis initially did not particularly emphasize the use of Fraktur (it was a mixed message), and in 1941 Hitler decided to standardize on Antiqua fonts for all printing. (And modern Grotesks such as Helvetica are based on Antiqua)
weinzierl 6y ago
> Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party. Helvetica was developed in 1957 in Switzerland. This was a time when pretty much the only text still printed in blackletter typefaces (like Fraktur) were newspaper mastheads. Outside of Germany blackletter was dead long before that time, and even in Germany it died much earlier. The so called "gothic" typefaces (to which Fraktur belongs) were ultimately banned in early 1941 there. So the success of Helvetica has nothing to do with Fraktur. If you ask me its success is based on its on own inherent qualities, combined with a portion of luck.
aasasd 6y ago
> use of Fraktur by a certain european political party You mean how Nazi abolished Fraktur along with Kurrentschrift? > On January 3, 1941, Martin Bormann issued a circular to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use. > “In a hundred years, our language will be the European language. The nations of the east, the north and the west will, to communicate with us, learn our language. The prerequisite for this: The script called Gothic is replaced by the script we have called Latin so far.” (Hitler's declaration in the Reichstag, 1934)
- aasasd 6y ago
  To clarify, Nazis did flip their position on Fraktur, and before '41 Antiqua was criticized as ‘Jewish’ just as well. But since the whole country used Fraktur for ages before the ban, associating it with Nazis is ridiculous.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]