Helvetica 50

On March 24, Lars Müller organised an event at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich as a birthday celebration. The typeface was born Neue Haas Grotesk and only got re-christened years later. (see wie-helvetica-zu-ihrem-namen-kam, in German only).

It was a great pleasure to meet Alfred Hoffmann whom I hand’t seen in more than fifteen years. Alfred is Edouard Hoffmann’s son, the man who briefed Max Miedinger for the design of Neue Haas Grotesk. The success of the typeface owes a lot to Hoffmann’s original idea and his detailed corrections during the design process.

After a podium discussion (with David Carson!) we saw the European premiere of Gary Hustwit’s Helvetica movie: helveticafilm. At the Typo conference in Berlin later in May the movie will have its German premiere. It is worth seeing even for people who have not beein infected with the typomania virus.

All Greek to me...

Apart from working on new typefaces, I have to keep expanding the existing families. OpenType not only represents the Latin alphabet, but can also include other character sets. Meta has long since had Greek and Cyrillic versions. MetaHeadline and MetaLight have not, however, been expanded to include those character sets.
Now, finally, two type designers in Athens have finished the first weight, MetaLight Greek. Thin and Hairline will follow.