Given this domestic reception, how did Neue Haas Grotesk, under the name Helvetica, become the celebrity typeface of today? Why did it triumph over Univers? Pre-History

The courses at Bauhaus encouraged students to incorporate technology into their designs, as well as emphasizing the need to create design that could be mass-produced. This is what led to the utilitarian-style design typically attributed to the Bauhaus movement. Using ‘ form follows function’, students were taught to make everyday objects more beautiful, while still being accessible. In all, the Bauhaus movement believed ‘ less is more’, in everything from colors to furniture to teapots to architecture. Speculative historical thinking, or counterfactual history, whether by historians or novelists, tries to imagine what might have happened if the outcome of a key moment in the past had been different. It has usually been applied to momentous events such as the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the American Civil War, the two World Wars or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But suppose we apply such thinking to something more mundane: the popularity of a typeface. Like Helvetica and Univers…for example. Three articles, in February 1952, established Ruder as a supporter of radical change. In January 1952, the first issue of the combined magazines retained Times as the text typeface; He introduced Monotype in the February issue that included his Bauhaus article. [5] :197 Poster design by Emil Ruder for an exhibition, 1952. Notable works [ edit ]What should be clear from these four counterfactual scenarios is that none of them alone can account for Helvetica’s current celebrity status. It is the concatenation of events over the past halfcentury that has been responsible. Like dominoes, each of those pivotal events had an impact on the following one. And thus, the only way that another typeface such as Univers would have attained the wide recognition of Helvetica is if a similar series of magic moments had occurred for it. Such moments would have followed a different trajectory. For instance, Univers may have become more popular among American designers than Helvetica if a student of Emil Ruder, rather than Massimo Vignelli, had been invited to be a partner at Unimark in 1965. Thus, the counterfactual history game can be played many ways. Although it is mere speculation in the end, it remains an enjoyable exercise, one that stresses the importance of the idiosyncratic circumstances of time and place over intrinsic characteristics. Helvetica forever? Maybe. Maybe not. A scholar by default,Ruder was named a typography instructor at theSchule für Gestaltung, Basel (Basel School of Design) in 1947. Vasileva E. (2021) The Swiss Style: It’s Prototypes, Origins and the Regulation Problem // Terra Artis. Arts and Design, 3, 84-101. Emil Ruder studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich and began teaching alongside Armin Hoffman in the 1950s. In his years as an instructor, he developed a program that encouraged students to focus on legibility, precision, and proportions. Ruder contributed to several articles for the Typografische Monatsblätter magazine. He also famously published his book Typographie: A Manual for Design where he rounded up his methods and approach to design. "Typographische Monatsblätter cover by Emil Ruder " by 80magazine is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Characteristics

The book helped spread and propagate the Swiss Style, and became a basic text for graphic design and typography programs in Europe and North America.

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Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication. The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication. [8] Early life [ edit ] Armin Hofmann's poster below uses a grid system to place the text. Hierarchy is emphasized by using a different text size. The top shapes are slightly skewed to add movement and also to add weight towards the right side of the poster. If the shapes were straight, the balance would favour the left side of the poster because the title of the poster uses a bigger point size. Poster designed by Armin Hofmann for an exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum Basel (Museum of Arts and Crafts), Public Domain. The International Typographic Style: History and Importance

Helvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Stylethat emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 60s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high x-height, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, compact appearance.

Characteristics

In this article, we showed you what Swiss Style is, the characteristics of the movement, famous designers, and why the International Typographic Style is still relevant to this day. During the post war years when, in almost every field of applied art, there was still no sign of transition to a new form of expression better fitted to the times, Emil Ruder was one of the first pioneers to discard all of the conventional rules of traditional typography and to establish new laws of composition more in accord with the modern era. For some designers, the Swiss Style design is synonymous with Helvetica—which means "Swiss" in its original language. It's one of the main characteristics of the style, but to really understand Swiss Design, we must look to the precedent of the movement. What is Swiss Style?

A Swiss Style visionaryRudertaught that typography's purpose was to communicate ideas through writing,especially in sans-serifmode, and he was totally committedto the discipline of letterpress typography. In 1957 three typefaces, all designed in the same neo-grotesque manner, were released: Neue Haas Grotesk by Eduard Hoffmann and Max Miedinger, Univers by Adrian Frutiger, and Folio by Konrad F. Bauer and Walter Baum. The first of them, eventually under the name Helvetica, emerged as the most popular.Acontributing writer and editor forthe then-popular trade publicationTypografische Monatsblätter (Typographic Monthly)he was one of thepioneers to discard all of the conventional rules of traditional typographyestablishingnew laws of composition more in accord with thepost warera. Moreover, Neue Haas Grotesk would never have been renamed Helvetica. Univers was intrinsically superior to Helvetica. It had a much larger family at the outset, with 21 members compared to four in 1960. More importantly, its family was logically designed with consistent weights and widths, something that Helvetica never achieved until its redesign as Neue Helvetica in 1982. Univers’ characters, stripped of “unnecessary” elements such as the beard on ‘G’ or the curve on the tail of ‘y,’ were also more rationally designed. It had the powerful support of Ruder, who wrote about it in Typographische Monatsblätter (TM), both upon its release and again in 1961.