We know that typography can be used as a way of mutual understanding between you and your users. To communicate effectively, typography requires appropriate typefaces as there are a lot of unsung fonts out there that have really inspired us. Color and size of type elements are much more prevalent than in text typography. Most display typography exploits type at larger sizes, where the details of letter design are magnified. Color is used for its emotional effect in conveying the tone and nature of subject matter.

01. Kilogram

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02. Franchise

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03. Flux Architect

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04. PT Sans

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05. Bada Bing

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06. Lane

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07. Sketchetica

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08. DejaRip (Registration Required)

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09. Kardon typeface

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10. Palm of budhha

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11. Cartwheel

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12. Logofontik

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13. Alpharuler

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14. Soda

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15. Juice

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16. Gnuolane

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17. Merge

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18. Monkey Bars (Registration Required)

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19. Orial

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20. Costura

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21. Branko Kockica

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22. Halfway-Font

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23. Expressway

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24. A_B_ Stochome Modular

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25. Knucklepuck

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26. Phat Blox

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27. Rusticus

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28. Leftovers (Registration Required)

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29. Lilly

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30. Redonda (Registration Required)

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31. Exus Pilot

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32. Jettletter

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33. SMD black

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34. Solgas

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35. Notice3 (Dingbats Font)

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Technically speaking, it’s a sans serif Grotesque typeface, inspired by and based on the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface created by Berthold around 1898.

In practical terms, though, it’s used by designers at independent firms, big corporations, and everything in between, from all over the world.

Helvetica has been featured by MOMA in New York and has received a number of awards and worldwide recognition. There’s even a documentary and a few books about it.

But why is Helvetica so popular? What is it about this font that seemingly tries to be inconspicuous that has made it such a part of our culture and daily lives?

We see it dozens of times every day, from product logos, to websites, to packaging, and numerous other items. Read on for more information about Helvetica and why you might want to consider it in your next design project.

A Brief History

The original Helvetica was designed in Switzerland in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas type foundry (Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei). Haas was controlled by the type foundry Stempel, which was in turn controlled by Linotype.

Helvetica was originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk, and was closely based on Schelter-Grotesk. It was created specifically to be neutral, to not give any impression or have any meaning in itself. This neutrality was paramount, and based on the idea that type itself should give no meaning.

The original Helvetica brochure.

The marketing director at Stempel decided to change the name to Helvetica in 1960 to make the font more marketable internationally. Originally it was proposed that the typeface be called Helvetia (Latin for Switzerland), but the designers didn’t want to name it after a country, and so it was called Helvetica instead (which is Latin for Swiss).

Helvetica Variations

There have been a number of Helvetica variations created, including a number of language variants (Cyrillic, Korean, Hindi, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Greek among them). Others variations include:

• Helvetica Light was designed at Stempel by artistic director Erich Schultz-Anker and Arthur Ritzel.
• Helvetica Compressed was designed by Matthew Carter that’s similar to Helvetica Inserat, but with a few differences.
• Helvetica Textbook is an alternate design with a few different characters.
• Helvetica Rounded was developed in 1978 and includes rounded stroke terminators. It’s only available in bold and black versions (including condensed and obliques), plus an outline version that wasn’t available digitally.
• Neue Helvetica was developed in 1983 and has more structurally unified heights and widths among its characters. It also has improved legibility, increased spacing in numbers, and heavier punctuation marks.

Rise In Popularity

Helvetica was designed in post-war Europe, and many companies were looking for a change. It was the opposite of all the kitschy, fancy, decorative typography that covered corporate materials and advertisements.

Helvetica’s sleek lines and modern sensibilities were just what companies were looking for to remake their identities and set themselves apart from the past.

Corporations stick by Helvetica because of what they have invested in it. Because of this, it has become associated with corporate culture and business to some degree. This is one reason why American Apparel chose to use the font for their own brand identity to poke fun at corporate culture in America.

Compared to Arial

Arial is a very similar font to Helvetica, and was developed in 1982. To an untrained eye, the differences between the two fonts is almost undetectable. But there are key differences among certain characters, notably G, R, r, t, a, and 3. I Love Typography has a great comparison of how Arial and Helvetica differ.

Helvetica is somewhat more refined than Arial, even though each one has the same character width.

One of the key differences, though, is in the strokes for each character. Helvetica uses primarily vertical or horizontal strokes, while Arial often uses diagonal strokes.

If you’re interested to see if you can tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica, Ironic Sans has a quiz that compares 20 popular logos originally designed with Helvetica redone in Arial and compared.

It’s harder than you’d initially think, particularly if those characters mentioned above (with key differences between the two fonts) aren’t present in the logos.

Technical Details of Helvetica

Technically, Helvetica is a very interesting font. There are a few things that set it apart from many other sans serif fonts, and make it unique.

• Helvetica’s characters always have vertical or horizontal terminations on their strokes, never diagonal.
• Helvetica is as much about the negative space surrounding the letters than about the lines that make up the characters themselves.
• The negative space contained within the lowercase “a” closely resembles a teardrop.
• It has monotone stroke weights.
• It remains legible when in motion, one reason it’s popular for signage and automaker and airline logos.

Designing with Helvetica

On of the best things about Helvetica is its neutrality. It was designed specifically not to give an impression or have any inherent meaning. And because of this, it’s very adaptable to use for different design projects. That’s one reason why it’s been used by everyone from Post-It to American Apparel. It’s also widely seen online, as it’s a web-safe font on Macs.

If you’re looking for a font that rides the line between classic and modern, conservative and edgy, or elegant and relaxed, Helvetica might just be your answer.

Depending on the design elements you include around it, Helvetica can be any or all of those things. Because it’s a sans serif font, it does tend to sway a bit more into the modern category, but it’s simple enough to fit in within a more traditional design.

Helvetica is particularly well-suited to signage and other designs where legibility is key. This is further reinforced by the wide variety of companies that have used the font in their logos or other corporate identity materials (American Apparel, American Airlines, Target, the NYC Subway, etc.).

Another of Helvetica’s main advantages is that it’s a very “safe” font. If you’re unsure of how particular typefaces influence design, Helvetica can be a good fall-back option that will have little impact by itself.

This can be useful to designers who are just getting started or for those studying design. But just remember, because Helvetica is “safe”, you’re unlikely to win any awards for being edgy or daring when you use it, at least not for the typography itself.

Helvetica in the Wild

As already mentioned, Helvetica is used in graphic design and web design all over the place. Below are a few examples of Helvetica in the real world. For more examples, check out our previous post, “40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica“.

One of a series of vintage-looking covers for social media sites (available as posters).

The NYC Subway system’s signs and map were changed to Helvetica in the 1970s by Massimo Vignelli.

U.S. Government forms all use Helvetica.

Helvetica looks neutral yet refined when cut from copper (just ignore the Comic Sans flyer below).

The “Love Happens” cover is in Helvetica; the other is (probably) in Arial.

Helvetica is neutral enough that it works even on signs that would normally use a more traditional font.

The commemorative Moleskine notebooks created for Helvetica.

Helvetica Light.

Another church sign in Helvetica.

Target has one of the more recognizable Helvetica logos.

Fox’s TV show “Fringe” uses Helvetica on their on-screen titles. It remains legible even at odd angles.

Another image from the NYC Subway.

NYC is not the only city to use Helvetica for transportation signs.

A tattoo in Helvetica.

A very early advertisement using Helvetica, dating to 1959.

Another vintage advertisement; the Motorola logo was in Helvetica, along with the headline.

Further Resources

• Helvetica and Alternatives to Helvetica – A comparison from The FontFeed of Helvetica and similar fonts.
• For Logo Power, Try Helvetica – An article from BusinessWeek on Helvetica logos.
• Swiss Legacy – Swiss Legacy has an entire category dedicated to designs using Helvetica.
• Helvetica at 50 – A great article from BBC News on the 50th anniversary of Helvetica.

Image credit: iPhone Helvetica Wallpaper (used in the article intro)

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Today we’re glad to present you Val Font, FILE Font, LOT Font and Cube Font designed by the FontFabric. Please read the license agreements carefully – they can change from time to time.

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VAL Font

VAL font is applicable for any type of graphic design – web, print, motion graphics etc and perfect for t-shirts and other items like logos, pictograms.

Format: Opentype (.otf)  Compatible: PC & Mac   Details: 215 Character Set, Manual Kerning, Tracking / Pairs   Price: Free

FILE Font

FILE font is applicable for any type of graphic design – web, print, motion graphics etc and perfect for t-shirts and other items like logos, pictograms.

Format: Opentype (.otf) Compatible: PC & Mac Details: 55 Character Set, Manual Kerning, Tracking / Pairs Price: Free

LOT Free Font

LOT free font is applicable for any type of graphic design – web, print, motion graphics etc and perfect for t-shirts and other items like logos, pictograms.

Format: Opentype (.otf) Compatible: PC & Mac Details: 78 Character Set, Manual Kerning, Tracking / Pairs Price: Free

Cube 02 Font

Cube 02™  is applicable for any type of graphic design – web, print, motion graphics etc and perfect for t-shirts and other items like logos, pictograms.

Format: Vector file (.eps) Compatible: PC & Mac Details: 36 Character Set, colored alphabets Price: Free

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The ampersand can be traced back to the first century AD. It was originally a ligature of the letters E and T (”et” is Latin for and). If you look at the modern ampersand, you’ll likely still be able to see the E and T separately.

The first ampersands looked very much like the separate E and T combined, but as type developed over the next few centuries, it eventually became more stylized and less representative of its origins.

You can see the evolution of the ampersand below (1 is like the original Roman ligature, 2 and 3 are from the fourth century, and 4-6 are from the ninth century).

The modern ampersand has remained largely unchanged from the Carolignian ampersands developed in the ninth century.

Italic ampersands were a later ligature of E and T, and are also present in modern fonts. These were developed as part of cursive scripts that were developed during the Renaissance. They’re often more formal-looking and fancier than the standard Carolignian ampersand.

The word “ampersand” was first added to dictionaries in 1837. The word was created as a slurred form of “and, per se and”, which was what the alphabet ended with when recited in English-speaking schools. (Historically, “and per se” preceded any letter which was also a word in the alphabet, such as “I” or “A”. And the ampersand symbol was originally the last character in the alphabet.)

The ampersand is a part of every roman font. It’s used in modern text often, probably most frequently in the names of corporations and other businesses, or in other formal titles (such as Dungeons & Dragons).

It’s experiencing a bit of a resurgence in general usage, as it commonly replaces “and” in text messages and Twitter updates. Ampersands are also commonly used in programming, particularly in MySQL, C and C++, XML, SGML, and BASIC.

Ampersand Designs

The original ampersand designs reflected their origins as a ligature of E and T. Even as the ampersand has evolved and become more stylized, it still retains the basic shape of E and T combined.

The standard ampersand most of us are used to seeing is the Carolignian variety, and is featured in many commonly-used fonts. Here are some examples:

Andale Mono – A very traditional, sans-serif example.

Apple Chancery – A fancier, serif example.

Kingthings Petrock - A gothic example.

The other common ampersand design is the italic ampersand, featured below:

Monotype Corsiva – A traditional script example.

Scriptina - A less-formal script example.

Aller Dispay – A modern, sans-serif example.

Hill House – A craftsman-style example.

Ampersands in Websafe and Web-Common Fonts

Some websafe and commonly used fonts on the web have excellent ampersand designs. Others, not so much. Here are the ampersands from a variety of web-common fonts:

Arial – Arial has a very basic, sans-serif ampersand.

Georgia - A very traditional, serif ampersand.

Helvetica – Helvetica’s ampersand is slightly more refined than Arial.

Palatino – Another very traditional example.

Times New Roman – A heavy, somewhat bulky-looking ampersand.

Verdana – The verdana ampersand is more squat and square than many other sans-serif examples.

Trebuchet MS – The only web-common font that uses an italic-style ampersand.

If you’re unhappy with the ampersand in a font you’ve chosen for your website, there are ways to use custom ampersands. The Typogrify plugin for WordPress makes it incredibly easy to use a custom ampersand on your WordPress blog.

The Ampersand in Design and Art

Ampersands have become a bit of an obsession for some. There are blogs that focus on ampersands (some within larger typography blogs, others focusing solely on the ampersand). There are t-shirts. And there are a surprising number of people out there who have ampersand tattoos. Here are some examples of ampersands in real life:

Using Ampersands in Your Designs

Whether for a web project or a print design, ampersands can play a prominent role in the look and feel of your website. When used in titles or headers they can add some extra graphic impact without images.

Italic ampersands, which are generally formal and fancy, can add extra elegance to a design that otherwise remains minimal. Carolignian ampersands in a sans-serif font are often bolder and have a modern feeling.

Carolignian ampersands in a serif font have a very traditional feeling, though depending on the specific font they can become more formal or more modern. A few more examples:

Italic Ampersands

Lucida Handwriting

Papyrus

Windsong

Goudy Bookletter 1911

Bernhard Modern

Caviar Dreams

Carolignian Ampersands

Lithos Pro

Tahoma

Optima

American Typewriter

Regency Script

Post by webdesigndepot

Madawaska ExtraLight
Madawaska is a rugged slab-serif font in 7 weights with fractions, old style numerals & lining numerals. When you’re using Madawaska Jeans or Madawaska River styles in an OpenType savvy application, common letter pairs will be automatically replaced by custom pairs for a more realistic, gritty effect. Madawaska ExtraLight is available for free download and use.

Apparatus SIL
The Apparatus SIL fonts were designed to provide most of the symbols needed to reproduce the textual apparatus found in major editions of Greek and Hebrew biblical texts. The fonts include the basic ASCII character set plus some international characters, Superscript characters, Certain Greek, Hebrew, Gothic (Fraktur) and other letters used for manuscripts and special punctuation. The font family consts of 4 weights: Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. It was designed for optimum clarity and compactness when printed at small point sizes.

League Gothic
League Gothic is a revival of an old classic Alternate Gothic No.1. It was originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF) in 1903. The company went bankrupt in 1993. And since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain. This font is a display sans-serif, available for free download and use in personal and commercial projects. Designed by The League Of Moveable Type.

Contra
This legible font family comes in 2 weights: Regular and Italic. It works best for headlines and in large sizes.

Sorts Mill Goudy
A ‘revival’ of Goudy Oldstyle and Italic, with features among which are small capitals (in the roman only), oldstyle and lining figures, superscripts and subscripts, fractions, ligatures, class-based kerning, case-sensitive forms, capital spacing. There is support for many languages that use latin script. Currently there is no bold, but artificial emboldening by a web browser isn’t especially offensive with these fonts. Serif text/display-font, designed by Barry Schwartz.

Calluna Regular (registration is required)
Calluna is a typeface with flow. Calluna supports a very wide range in languages and is a very complete OpenType typeface. Each font has overall 723 glyphs. To download the free regular weight, you’ll have to register at MyFonts.com. Designed by Jos Buivenga.

Goudy Bookletter 1911
A classic vintage serif font, based on Frederic Goudy’s Kennerley Oldstyle. Designed by Barry Schwartz.

Public Gothic Family
Public Gothic Family is a little industrial, little vintage, little condensed, little bold. Public Gothic is a new font family, free to use in all your designs, commercial or non commercial. PB family members are PB Square, PB Vintage, PB Circular, PB Federal. It’s compatible with any OS (Mac T1, Win OTF, Win TTF).

ArtBrush
A brushed script font for informal occasions. The @font-face-kit is included.

FFF Tusj
A distinctive, original script font that is supposed to be a handwritten version of Georgia. The font works best in very large size.

ITC Chino Bold Italic
International Type Corporation released a new text family ITC Chino that consists of 10 fonts. One weight, Chino Black Italic was released for free.

Burnstown Dam
An original playful typeface that can be useful for family-related websites. Available in the OpenType format.

Deibi
An original, playful free font, created by Wete, a Spanish type designer.

Tex Gyre Schola
A clean, strong, academic sans-serif font that can be used for formal documents and scientific works.

Juvelo
A font family from The Crud Factory, inspired by Diethelm-Antiqua, and named ‘jewel’ in Esperanto. An italic is being developed.

Programming fonts: ProFont for Windows, Mac and Linux and Anonymous Pro (thanks, Chris Apalodimas).

Sovereign™ Regular
Sovereign is a highly original serif family from G-Type’s Nick Cooke. Available for Mac and Win.

Experimental Free Fonts

Groteska
A blocky experimental font by Alberto Rodríguez.

VAL

Digitica
Another geometric font by the French type designer Samuel Delabarre.

Layer Cake and Soraya
Layer Cake (the first screensot below) is an isometric multiple layered type with capital letters A-Z, available only in Illustrator AI format. Soraya (the second screenshot) is half serif, half sans serif with capital letters A-Z, also available only in Illustrator AI format. Designed by Jakob Nylund.

Badabum
Where does typography become art? Well, for instance in this font. The letters are difficult to read, but geometric forms are abstrac and captivaning. A creative font by Jonathan Calugi.

Free Font Amadeus
A playful, @font-face compatible free font by the foundry Bright Ideas.

20 Dingbat Fonts That Are Actually Useful

Reminder: Download fonts from our previous posts

Chunk Open Source Typeface [ Download the .zip-package ]
Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use. OpenType. Designed by Meredith Mandel. (via Graham Smith).

Titilium [ Download the .zip-package ]
A very legible, beautiful academic typeface that perfectly fits to every corporate identity design, magazines and headlines of corporate web-sites. The typeface is available in various weights: text version, title version, extra-black version and full-version.

Rough Draft Regular
A legendary TrueType typeface by Harold Lohner. Contains 189 characters in 9 ranges. For $5 you can buy the complete set which includes separate Outline, Clean Fill, and Solid Fill fonts.

Nilland
A beautiful slab-serif typeface, designed by Manfred Klein. The family consists of 6 weights, regular, bold, extra bold, black, small caps and small caps bold (link and images via DerSven.de).

Aller Sans [ Specimen | License | Download ]
Dalton Maag design team designed a beautiful sans-serif Aller Sans, sponsored by Danish publishing company Aller (hence the name). The typeface was designed as part of the Danish School of Media and Journalisms new CI and is now available for free use and download (via).

M+ Outline
These fonts are free software. Unlimited permission is granted to use, copy, and distribute it, with or without modification, either commercially and noncommercially. Designed by Morishita Coji. The fonts are regulary updated, work in progress. Caution: Japanese language.

Andale Mono
Andale Mono is a highly legible monospaced font which was originally distributed as part of the Internet Explorer 4.0 add-ons page as Monotype.com. It distinguishes well between the zero, and the O. You can find 4 further monospaced fonts in Hamish Macpherson’s article The Typography of Code.

Credits: Hamish Macpherson

Junction [ Download the .zip-package ]
Designed by Caroline Hadilaksono, Junction is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It has elegant, clearn and very sharp glyphs, but contains only 100 most common symbols. Like Gentium it perfectly fits to body copy, but can also show its strengths, balance and beauty in headlines. Here are some insights from the designer:

Vegur
This humanist sans-serif family is available in OpenType-format in three weights: ExtraLight, Regular and Bold. The typeface can be perfectly used both in body copy and in headlines.

Smashing EditorialThe team here at Smashing Magazine. Mostly Sven & Vitaly.

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Livia

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