Which helvetica is best

Obviously not. Yet, can you imagine Disney, Coca-Cola or Marlboro becoming such iconic brand identities if they used Helvetica instead of their well known types? You really have to make your own opinion; I recommend the documentary " Helvetica " to explore the history and context of this legendary typeface.

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Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What is so good about Helvetica? Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 11 months ago. Active 6 years, 9 months ago. Viewed 31k times. Improve this question. Vincent Vincent You're looking for objective answers but asking about subjective hype. Objectively, you're already answered the question "Helvetica is neutral, well-glyphed and has been in use for long".

I really recommend the movie about it. It's more about graphic designers themselves, but it uses the font as a talking point. IBM chose Helvetica Neue not the same thing, I know as their brand's font because "It is the font of science and the information age, with a precision and objectivity that commands respect.

We lean on Helvetica Neue to do the hard work of conveying information, specifications and the basics. Its clean confidence makes it ideal for our product design. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Alan Gilbertson Alan Gilbertson This may be what the OP meant by "well-glyphed", I'm not sure. But Helvetica definitely has a classy sort of elegance to it.

And with some of the early laser printers, you had to purchase physical font cartridges and physically install them into a slot to use any font other than the few the printer had built in. While this might not have been a problem even in those days for Postscript-driven printers, at the very least it did not help adoption of alternative fonts. Although I agree that bemdesign 's answer is spot-on and correct, this one gives me more objective reasons why Helvetica gained the popularity it currently enjoys.

Thanks, Alan! Nice observation, but 'balanced and neutral' would make something 'uneventful' and 'dull' to me. I'm still puzzled how Helvetica has been able to avoid those associations. I don't think Helvetica has successfully avoided all associations with "uneventful" and "dull"! But Helvetica's utilitarianism still makes it a useful tool to have around. The new version, Helvetica Now , updates each of Helvetica's 40, characters to reflect the demands of the 21st century.

Nix, who has spent two years reengineering the letters, hopes it will let designers see Helvetica in an entirely new way. Before there was Helvetica, there was Neue Haas Grotesk.

Created in , the typeface sprung from the mind of Swiss designers Max Miedinger and Edouard Hoffman.

Emblematic of Swiss design and midcentury modernism, it was meant to be simple and clean—a set of letters that would disappear to let the words speak for themselves. In , typeface maker Haas rebranded it as Helvetica and introduced to the wider world.

As Helvetica became more popular, Haas began issuing new weights and sizes to meet growing demand. A bold weight here, a hairline version there. But some of those additions to the Helvetica family introduced inconsistencies. Peculiar characters began to emerge. Walter Baden. Fonts — Heldane Display , Helvetica. Chloe Scheffe. Fonts — Times Dot , Helvetica. Fonts — Editorial New , Helvetica. Ok Drugs. Donica Ida. Fonts — Galaxie Copernicus , Helvetica.

Perfect Mag. Fonts — Adieu , Helvetica. Quiet Digital Revolution. Timesheets Magazine. Fonts — Visuelt , Helvetica. It naturally has more generous spacing than other neo-grotesques like Helvetica, meaning you can add negative letter-spacing at large sizes which will incidentally make it feel even more like Helvetica.

On the other hand? Get it at: Inter at Google Fonts. The popular default Android font, Roboto , is open-source and free to use.

Since the letterforms are slightly thinner and therefore more compact, I feel it works best for busy, important UI where space is of the essence and cannot be wasted. Get it at: Roboto at Google Fonts. Arimo has quite a slightly taller letterforms than Helvetica, but is otherwise a fairly decent replacement.