Let’s explore the three iconic typefaces—Helvetica, Frutiger, and Futura—to get a deeper understanding of type culture. Due to the backgrounds, goals, and situations in which these typefaces were designed, they have had a significant cultural impact.

Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface designed in 1957 by Swiss designers Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. The movement was inspired by the principles of simplicity, neutrality, and clarity common in Swiss design, originally called “Neue Haas Grotesk” (Cantavalle). “Helvetia,” the Latin word for Switzerland, is the source of its name. With a broad range of applications in mind, including corporate branding and signage, Helvetica was designed to be a flexible, universal typeface. A symbol of modernity, professionalism, and corporate identity, Helvetica gained immense popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, making numerous advertising appearances on posters and billboards across Europe and the USA (Simplified). In 1983, Helvetica was revived and expanded by Linotype as Neue Helvetica. (Rabinowitz, 137) Due to its impartiality, many governments, businesses, and organizations all around the world have adopted it as the perfect tool for use across borders. Modern visual culture cannot exist without it because of how common it is in signs, advertising, and graphic design.

Adrian Frutiger, a Swiss typeface designer, created Frutiger in 1976; the Frutiger type family was revived in 1999 by Adrian Frutiger (Rabinowitz, 144), with the goal of enhancing readability and legibility in navigation and signage. Drawing from his expertise in developing typefaces for airports, Frutiger set out to build a sans-serif typeface that would be adaptable enough to handle the demands of signage in a variety of settings. It is very readable from a distance thanks to its distinguishing features and wide, clear letterforms. Frutiger is also responsible for other Univers type styles; instead of naming them all Univers type styles, Frutiger made a chart numbering all the type weights and widths. (Rabinowitz, 34,133)     

Frutiger has had a significant cultural impact because it is now widely associated with corporate brands, airports, and transportation networks, which has helped to solidify its position as a classic and recognizable typeface in contemporary typography.

German typeface designer Paul Renner created Futura in 1925. It is a representation of the Bauhaus movement’s emphasis on geometric shapes, simplicity, and utility. Inspired by modernist principles, Renner aimed to design a typeface that captured the essence of the machine age. Once it was flawless, he displayed it with the words “Die schrift unserer Zeit,” which translates to “the font of our time” (Garfield,192-194,289).

Futura is still the go-to font for some major brands like Volkswagen, Supreme, GoFundMe, and Best Buy, just to name a few (Hipfonts). One of the most famous places the font has been used was on the Apollo 11 mission, where the plaque left by the astronauts used Futura (Garfield, 195).

 

Work Cited

Cantavalle, Sarah. “The History and Evolution of the Font Helvetica | Pixartprinting.” The Pixartprinting Blog, 22 Jan. 2021, www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/history-font-helvetica/.

Garfield, Simon. Just My Type : A Book about Fonts. New York, New York, Gotham Books, 2012.

Hipfonts. “15 Companies That Use Futura in Their Logo.” HipFonts, 8 Oct. 2020, hipfonts.com/futura-typeface/.

Kulkarni, Shubham. “Arial vs Helvetica: Which Font Is the the “Little Black Dress” of Graphic Design.” Simplified, 22 June 2021, simplified.com/blog/design/arial-vs-helvetica.

Rabinowitz, Tova. Exploring Typography: An in-Depth Guide to the Art & Techniques of Designing with Type. Thomson Delmar Learning, 2006.