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Does anyone know how/why Helvetica wound up the most appealing font? Publishing content with Helvetica font seems to give the content an automatic, unconscious

Does anyone know how/why Helvetica wound up the most appealing font? Publishing content with Helvetica font seems to give the content an automatic, unconscious boost in credibility. Why is that? It seems to be a primal reaction rather than a learned behavior. Helvetica looks the best to me because it looks the best, not because someone else said so.

grinich 13y ago
I wouldn't say it's the most appealing. It's just the most simple, universal, sans-serif font. (Times is probably the serif equivalent.) Medium Helvetica is super legible and has great proportions. It gets out of the way and lets you concentrate on the content, which is why it's used for things like subway signs. It's kerning is balanced and works at large and small sizes. Helvetica is kind of like denim. It doesn't go out of style, but you can wear it hundreds of different ways. It's also Swiss. They generally make good stuff. :)
jacobolus 13y ago
Helvetica is great for logos, titles, headings, posters, etc., when you’re aiming for a specific (orderly/rigid/boxy/neutral/mid-to-late-20th-century, and generic, like corporate or government) kind of aesthetic. Helvetica is not a very readable typeface for body text – anything with more than a few words at a time – or anything small like labels on a map or diagram. This is because by design its letters have many extremely similar shapes which makes it harder to distinguish letters at a glance, and because it is designed not to flow. There are particular situations where Helvetica is appropriate, but it is massively overused in contexts where it is a poor choice. A humanist sans serif like this new Mozilla typeface is much better for general purpose use.
- pestaa 13y ago
  And now I want to read a book titled Typefaces written by Jacob Rus.
  - alxndr 13y ago
    I've really enjoyed flipping through this site which talks about the history of some fonts (as well as lots of other stuff about typograph): http://ilovetypography.com/ http://ilovetypography.com/
kahirsch 13y ago
There's a documentary about Helvetica that's available on Netflix (US). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)
- Renaud 13y ago
  Highly recommended. Very interesting documentary about the origins of the type, it's use, those who love it, those who do not.
- normloman 13y ago
  Feel free to skip this movie. It's mostly old white dudes gushing about how great helvetica is.
  - alayne 13y ago
    The "old white dudes" of course being many of the top type designers in the world including Hermann Zapf who dislikes Helvetica, Spiekermann, and many others.
    - normloman 13y ago
      Doesn't matter how famous the designers are. It's still just a typeface. And the people in the movie are getting worked up over it.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Perhaps this might have something to do with it: Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica, and NASA uses the type on the Space Shuttle orbiter. You're unconsciously conditioned to associate it with formal/official operations. Same reason why I'm so fond of Courier (although I'm apparently somewhat alone in that)
grey-area 13y ago
Does anyone know how/why Helvetica wound up the most appealing font? It's not the most appealing, but it is quite a neutral font which I'd argue is the base of its appeal - there are no serifs, no whimsical curves, and it is associated with Modernism so it gives an impression of quiet authority going back to fonts like Univers and the International Style. That makes it appropriate for content that wants to be taken seriously, while not seeming too stuffy or traditional, so it has become popular for business use as well as in setting adverts, and of course it lends itself well to computer screens. Doubtless it will fall out of favour at some point, I have no doubt it will remain popular, but it's unlikely to maintain its hegemony. It seems to be a primal reaction rather than a learned behavior. Helvetica looks the best to me because it looks the best, not because someone else said so. What an incredible assertion. Without your culture, all the books you have seen, the adverts you have seen, the computers you use, your appreciation of helvetica would be entirely different. I'm sure there are cases where nature overcomes nurture, but in this case context is almost everything. You wouldn't even know what these squiggles represented without picking up a huge amount of cultural baggage associated with them, without listening to what other people say. Our opinion on fonts and matters of style is based almost entirely on cultural baggage.

grinich 13y ago

I wouldn't say it's the most appealing. It's just the most simple, universal, sans-serif font. (Times is probably the serif equivalent.) Medium Helvetica is super legible and has great proportions. It gets out of the way and lets you concentrate on the content, which is why it's used for things like subway signs. It's kerning is balanced and works at large and small sizes. Helvetica is kind of like denim. It doesn't go out of style, but you can wear it hundreds of different ways. It's also Swiss. They generally make good stuff. :)

jacobolus 13y ago

Helvetica is great for logos, titles, headings, posters, etc., when you’re aiming for a specific (orderly/rigid/boxy/neutral/mid-to-late-20th-century, and generic, like corporate or government) kind of aesthetic. Helvetica is not a very readable typeface for body text – anything with more than a few words at a time – or anything small like labels on a map or diagram. This is because by design its letters have many extremely similar shapes which makes it harder to distinguish letters at a glance, and because it is designed not to flow. There are particular situations where Helvetica is appropriate, but it is massively overused in contexts where it is a poor choice. A humanist sans serif like this new Mozilla typeface is much better for general purpose use.

pestaa 13y ago
And now I want to read a book titled Typefaces written by Jacob Rus.
- alxndr 13y ago
  I've really enjoyed flipping through this site which talks about the history of some fonts (as well as lots of other stuff about typograph): http://ilovetypography.com/ http://ilovetypography.com/

kahirsch 13y ago

There's a documentary about Helvetica that's available on Netflix (US). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)

Renaud 13y ago
Highly recommended. Very interesting documentary about the origins of the type, it's use, those who love it, those who do not.
normloman 13y ago
Feel free to skip this movie. It's mostly old white dudes gushing about how great helvetica is.
- alayne 13y ago
  The "old white dudes" of course being many of the top type designers in the world including Hermann Zapf who dislikes Helvetica, Spiekermann, and many others.
  - normloman 13y ago
    Doesn't matter how famous the designers are. It's still just a typeface. And the people in the movie are getting worked up over it.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Perhaps this might have something to do with it: Helvetica is widely used by the U.S. government; for example, federal income tax forms are set in Helvetica, and NASA uses the type on the Space Shuttle orbiter. You're unconsciously conditioned to associate it with formal/official operations. Same reason why I'm so fond of Courier (although I'm apparently somewhat alone in that)

grey-area 13y ago

Does anyone know how/why Helvetica wound up the most appealing font? It's not the most appealing, but it is quite a neutral font which I'd argue is the base of its appeal - there are no serifs, no whimsical curves, and it is associated with Modernism so it gives an impression of quiet authority going back to fonts like Univers and the International Style. That makes it appropriate for content that wants to be taken seriously, while not seeming too stuffy or traditional, so it has become popular for business use as well as in setting adverts, and of course it lends itself well to computer screens. Doubtless it will fall out of favour at some point, I have no doubt it will remain popular, but it's unlikely to maintain its hegemony. It seems to be a primal reaction rather than a learned behavior. Helvetica looks the best to me because it looks the best, not because someone else said so. What an incredible assertion. Without your culture, all the books you have seen, the adverts you have seen, the computers you use, your appreciation of helvetica would be entirely different. I'm sure there are cases where nature overcomes nurture, but in this case context is almost everything. You wouldn't even know what these squiggles represented without picking up a huge amount of cultural baggage associated with them, without listening to what other people say. Our opinion on fonts and matters of style is based almost entirely on cultural baggage.