After 36 Years, Helvetica Gets a Much-Needed Facelift

Everyone has anopinion about fount , but Helvetica has long reigned over the modern era . It ’s used forbrands galore — Panasonic , Jeep , American Airlines , Motorola , 3 M , Toyota , to name a few — but in recent year , technical school ship’s company likeIBM , Apple , Netflix , andGooglehave been shift to their custom Helvetica - esque - but - not - quite font to deal with some of its quirks . Rather than let Helvetica pall a dull dying , all 40,000 grapheme in the world ’s most iconic typeface have been revamp into a raw font called — wait for it — Helvetica Now .

“ This is not a revival . This is not a restoration , ” writesMonotype , the company which own the licensing right field to Helvetica . “ This is a statement . This is Helvetica Now : for everyone , everywhere , for everything . ”

O - kay then . rent it be pronounce that case designers are a spectacular bunch .

Monotype” class=”size-full wp-image-2000095408″ />Helvetica Now comes in three sizes: Micro, Text, and Display.Graphic:Monotype

Some of the issues with Helvetica centered around uneven kerning — the spacing between letter — and legibility offspring at small-scale sizes . That introduces challenges when it comes to meeting modern tech demand , like resizable internet browser windows and smaller screens . To address those issue , Helvetica Now will be usable in three size : Micro , Text , and Display . allot toMonotype , Micro is stand for for minuscule screen and lower resolution , like what you might find on tablets and smartwatches . Meanwhile , showing evens out kerning for large size of it , like a billboard , while Text is designed for “ visually crowd environments . ” ( on the face of it , something that ’s very text heavy like a school text or an article . )

The last fourth dimension Helvetica was updated was in 1983 withHelvetica Neue , which is basically the reading of the baptistery you ’re likely most familiar with . As for how it differs with Helvetica Now aside from sizing , it ’s mostly pocket-sized innovation tweak . Changes include clarifying the difference between a lower-case letter cubic decimeter and a capital I , as well as an updated @ symbol . Helvetica Now also includes a consecutive - legged radius , a individual - story a , “ lowercase uranium without a trail seriph , ” rounder punctuation mark and a rounded G.

For now , you could explore what Helvetica Now looks like on Monotype’swebsite . It ’ll take a bit before Helvetica Now entirely supersede its precursor , however . Companies will still have to license the baptistry from Monotype , and that could take some time . chance are , unless you ’re super into design or typefaces , you might not notice any deviation at all .

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