> 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 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.