Project 3 : Typer and Hierarchy
For this aspect of the project we were asked to take the research we had done on the Helvetica font and begin to bring it to life / exhibit it through a poster.
Origin of Helvetica
Helvetica originated from Switzerland and was originally supposed to be called Helvetia (which actually meant Switzerland in Latin). It was designed in the Haas Type Foundry by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann and holds a close relationship to the Schelter-Grotesk font (which much of its style was derived/based). Helvetica officially held its name in 1960 but was first thought about and conceptualized in 1957.
Type Classification of Helvetica
Helvetica falls under the type classification of “Neo-grotesque sans serif” which is one of the earlier versions of sans serif.
Purpose of creating Helvetica
The font was originally created to create a typeface that held neutrality and did not elicit much meaning. It is really meant to bring out the clarity of a word without conveying any other response / emotion. Part of what sets Helvetica apart from other typefaces is the clean edges of typeface. Unlike american typewriter, that carries stud-like edges to almost “hold the letter up,” Helvetica does not use any extra edges to make distinction between each letter.
Uses that made Helvetica popular
Helvetica really gained popularity through the business industry. Helvetica is used broadly by the following companies : American Apparel, Panasonic, Harley Davidson, Skype, Target, Motorola, Nestle, Toyota and several more.
Several companies and designers use Helvetica for its cleanliness yet bold look.
T E S T I N G . D I F F E R E N T . I D E A S
This part of the project involves the development of an alternative to the design. Instead of going with the culture in the Helvetica font I instead sought to capture the idea of order with organized disorder to kind of speak towards the idea of Helvetica’s ability to be bold yet organized.
Looking at the structure of a bar code, I though about how at a glance it looks very random but with careful analysis, there is actually a system in place for how the lines appear and their thicknesses. Using a similar language in the poster, though it might look disorderly at a glance, there was actually careful consideration towards the spacing of each letter and the vertical lines associated with intersecting each letter.
F I N A L . P O S T E R .
Ultimately for the final iteration I decided to go with the cultural interpretation of the poster as I thought it has the ability to speak more about the writing without having to have paragraphs in the poster to elaborate.
For the final iteration of the Helvetica poster I decided to change my color scheme to match the clear red-white contrast of the flag of Switzerland. Instead of having all of the writing from the previous iterations on the poster, I decided to implement it all into the fabric of the design language.
The shadows were used often to emphasize certain key words. They also are used to cast in information that might not be as important in hierarchy.
For example the type foundry of Helvetica, “Haas” is shadowed behind the title as it represents a base of the type, but does not define the type. The time that Helvetica was established (1960) is however important and is therefore a brighter tone of white.
The cross along the poster with the red background is symbolic of the Switzerland flag, but it is also representation of coordinates and axis. Along the north and east directions of the cross are the longitude and latitude values of Switzerland.
As Switzerland is a very mountainous region, to the left of the poster can be seen the letter “M” alternating in opacity and orientation to create a mountain like pattern, with letter “V’s” stemming down towards the bottom right corner, representing the valleys that transition away from the mountains.
