20 weights are also available in Cyrillic versions, and four are available in Greek versions. 20 weights are available in Central European versions, supporting the languages of Central and Eastern Europe. Today, the original Helvetica family consists of 34 different font weights. Helvetica World supports a number of languages and writing systems from all over the globe. This family is much smaller in terms of its number of fonts, but each font makes up for this in terms of language support. At the beginning of the 21st Century, Linotype again released an updated design of Helvetica, the Helvetica World typeface family. Stempel AG and Linotype re-designed and digitized Neue Helvetica and updated it into a cohesive font family. Over the years, the Helvetica family was expanded to include many different weights, but these were not as well coordinated with each other as they might have been. In 1960 the name was changed to Helvetica (an adaptation of Helvetia", the Latin name for Switzerland). The original typeface was called Neue Haas Grotesk, and was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger for the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) in Switzerland. It lends an air of lucid efficiency to any typographic message with its clean, no-nonsense shapes. It does not store any personal data.Helvetica is one of the most famous and popular typefaces in the world. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The dissers say: poor in print and too informal for academic work or legal documents “Calibri is for primary school student assignments or children story books only” says a commenter on this Facebook group Who uses it: Microsoft – it’s their new default font on Word and now PowerPoint and Outlook. The dissers say: “The lowercase letters in Times are too narrow, spaced poorly, and the serifs are too sharp” says this blogger.įunny fact: “Researchers in 2008 found that satirical readings of text printed in Times New Roman were perceived as more funny and angry than those printed in Arial.”Īttributes: subtle rounded stems and corners that are visible at larger sizes and because it’s sans serifs, it’s easier to read on-screen than fonts like Times.
Who uses it: It’s common in books, and in some newspapers (it was orginally designed for the Times newspaper), it was a default font on Microsoft Word up until 2007 making it one of the most used fonts in the world.
Then others say it’s the Switzerland of typefaces – safe and boring, interesting blog here.Īttributes: With sharp serifs and a narrow base, it has a slightly literary feel. The dissers say: a victim of its own success, people get fed up with it being overused. Who uses it: a lot of corporate places use Helvetica or its variants, including American Apparel, Apple in its iPod and iPhone and the US government. We’ll give you a quick run-down of the contestants then let you vote in our Font Battle poll.Īttributes: a very neutral typeface designed to have great clarity and no intrinsic meaning in its form so it could be used on a wide variety of signage agreed .uk Passions run high, torn-off serifs litter the ground and some of the most vitriol on the internet is expended in these battles of words and lettering After Google snuck some new fonts into Google Documents, we thought today was a good day for tipping our blogging toes into the wild waters of font wars.