The dastardly font, Helvetica turned 50 this year and I hope it will be sent swiftly into retirement. Former Gulf Weekly design editor, Jayath Teki, will attest to my absolute hatred of this rakish type.
Unfortunately for me, Bahrain magazines and newspapers seemed to be in love with its nastiness. It’s weak and has all the character of a squashed mole.
Jayath found a perfect font in Chaparall, with which to throw Helvetica off the roof, at GW (this is pre redesign, when GW was still a newspaper of the world, rather than a small-island tabloid).
But before one assassinates Helvetica, let’s talk a little a bit about the font, and how it came to be the bane of newspaper designers across the globe.
The font was designed in 1957 (yes, way back then) by Swiss graphic designer Max Miedinger. Of course, he had to be Swiss, who else would come up with something so damn boring.
Someone at design company Haas, however, realised the sheer ineptitude of the font and aptly titled it Neue Haas Grotesk, but those damn Germans changed it all.
Stempel, Hass’s parent company quickly decided to change the name and called it Helvetica.
What’s worse is that there’s actually a film been made about the font (the picture is a still from the film, smartly titled, Helvetica), and it’s out on DVD this year. I bet that will be like watching paint fucking dry.
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