Helvetica (4 Stars)

"Helvetica" is a documentary made in 2007 about the typeface with the same name. The film was released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Helvetica's creation in 1957 by Max Miedinger. It presents balanced opinions between those who love Helvetica and those who hate it. One thing that we can't deny is that it's the world's most used typeface. We see it in public signs, brochures and on our phones. Apple computers use Helvetica, while Windows-based PCs use a similar typeface called Arial. Those who love Helvetica do so because it's very economical in its spacing and neutral in its message. As one designer says in the documentary, "If you want to make a brochure and have no skill as a designer, just write the text in a bold Helvetica font in one size and it'll look good". Those who hate Helvetica do so because it's overused. They think that Helvetica has run its course and needs to be replaced with new typefaces, maybe typefaces that haven't even been designed yet.

Arial was first created as an optimised version of Helvetica for IBM printers in 1982 and went through a few changes before it was officially adopted by Microsoft in 1992. Almost all the letters are the same in shape, height and width, meaning that the untrained eye can't tell the two typefaces apart, but there are distinct differences in the letters G, Q and R, as well as the digit 1 and certain non-alphabetic characters like the Euro symbol. The characters that have a loop are terminated diagonally in Arial, but vertically or horizontally in Helvetica. This includes, among others, the letters C, G, J and S.

Helvetica G

Arial G

Helvetica Q

Arial Q

Helvetica R

Arial R

Helvetica C

Arial C

Helvetica S

Arial S

I love the little flourish on the leg of Helvetica's capital R. It almost looks like a small serif that was slipped into the design as a bonus. Arial replaces this with a flourish in the bar of the capital Q, but this is less aesthetically pleasing.

I consider the capital S in Arial to be a design fault, because the diagonal slant of the termination doesn't match that of the capital C. In comparison, the small S is correctly formed, as you can see from the following examples.

Helvetica Small C

Arial Small C

Helvetica Small S

Arial Small S

Microsoft hasn't noticed this error since the Arial TrueType fonts were created 20 years ago, so I doubt it will ever be fixed.

I've never been a fan of the Helvetica typeface, since I prefer serif typefaces. I've always considered Helvetica a passe-partout typeface, and I've only ever used it for footnotes when writing documents. I steer away from Arial, of course, only using it online when Windows presents it as the default. I've lived with Helvetica all my life, so it's difficult for me to imagine a time when it didn't exist. This film has given me insight into the aesthetics of the typeface, so I now feel tempted to experiment with it in the future.