Helvetica Forever E Cover
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Lars Müller and Victor Malsy (eds.)

Helvetica forever

Story of a Typeface

Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. The balanced and neutral appearance of Helvetica forgoes a high degree of expressivity – a quality for which it is both criticized and admired. This polarization has helped to gain it unparalleled notoriety. This publication retraces Helvetica’s fifty-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the twentieth century, and examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread. The documentation is based on the achievements and archive of Alfred Hoffmann, the former director of the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (type foundry), where, in conjunction with Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, Helvetica was developed. Numerous illustrations show a multitude of ways the font has been used in five decades from a wide variety of fields – from signal design to party flyers.

Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. The balanced and neutral appearance of Helvetica forgoes a high degree of expressivity – a quality for which it is both criticized and admired. This polarization has helped to gain it unparalleled notoriety. This publication retraces Helvetica’s fifty-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the twentieth century, and examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread. The documentation is based on the achievements and archive of Alfred Hoffmann, the former director of the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (type foundry), where, in conjunction with Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, Helvetica was developed. Numerous illustrations show a multitude of ways the font has been used in five decades from a wide variety of fields – from signal design to party flyers.

This book is also available in German

Edited by Lars Müller and Victor Malsy

With contributions by Axel Langer and Indra Kupferschmid

Design: Victor Malsy and Lars Müller with Integral Lars Müller

19 x 26 cm / 17,5 x 24 cm, 7 ½ x 10 ¼ in

160 pages, 150 illustrations

hardback

2009, 978-3-03778-121-0, English
Typography Swiss Design Design History
CHF 35.00
Out of stock

Victor Malsy

Victor Malsy works as a typographer, book designer and university lecturer, after training as a draftsman and nurse. For more than 30 years, he has devoted himself to the history of design, which is also the focus of his research and teaching at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, where he has been a professor of communication history since 2000. Together with Philipp Teufel, he founded labor visuell in 2004, which examines designers and design archives. Malsy has also owned his own office for communication and design since 1991.

Lars Müller

Lars Müller, born in Oslo in 1955 and a Norwegian citizen, has been based in Switzerland since 1963. After becoming a graphic designer in Zurich, extended travels, and a one-year assistant position with designer Wim Crouwel in Amsterdam, Müller established his studio in Baden/Switzerland in 1982. In 1983, Müller published his first book and as Lars Müller Publishers, with offices in Zürich, has produced some 600 titles to date.