Helvetica is a typeface developed by Max Miedinger in 1957 for the Haas’sche Schriftgießerei type foundry of Switzerland. Its name is derived from Helvetia, the Roman name for Switzerland. The font is based on the earlier Akzidenz Grotesk typeface from around 1898. The typeface, originally titled Haas-Grotesk, is a very clean sans-serif face. The typeface became extremely popular in the 1960s, when it was widely used. In 1983, Linotype released the Neue Helvetica (German for "New Helvetica") typeface, based on Helvetica.

The typeface Arial, distributed with Microsoft Windows, has the same widths as Helvetica but is based on a different design. One of the easiest ways to distinguish the two is their uppercase "R". Another way is looking at the "tail" of the a (lower right). This is easily seen in the illustration.

While Univers is acknowledged to be the most used Latin typeface in the world, Helvetica is widely used in countries such as France, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries.

Helvetica is also one of the default typefaces for the Mac OS system. The typeface Nimbus Sans (one of the default typefaces for GNU/Linux) is based on Helvetica.

Sample

The following paragraph is in Helvetica, if it (or Arial) is installed on your machine. If not, a monospace font is used:

Further reading

• The Scourge of Arial – a discussion on how Arial was created as an alternative to Helvetica.
• Distinguishing Helvetica from Arial.