I have a fond memory of Mike, with his cheery wicked smile, on a sunny afternoon riding in an open convertible, charging through traffic-clogged streets in Boston, heading over to the Bitstream offices, blasting powerful classical music (unfamiliar to me, who only knew blues and rock) on a crystal-clear sound system, which reverberated off the office buildings downtown, while Mike punctuated the music with sharp wit, deftly negotiating near-collisions at high speed.
For a poignant account of his later years, and his struggle with Alzheimers, see the blog written by his ex-wife and steady friend, Sybil Masquelier. The entry "The Farewell Tour" describes their final trip to New York in 2011 to receive the Type Designers Club lifetime achievement award.
I've started to spend a lot of time on HN and enjoy the community despite not being a very strong developer. The discussion here though seems to highlight a divide. This is Helvetica! You can not understate its importance!
If I were to try and translate this for the HN crowd I would compare Helvetica to whatever you consider to be the greatest framework of all time. We stand on the shoulders of giants and Mike Parker is one of them.
Apart from two (two!) comments, of which one is [dead], expressing confusion about why this is important, there seems to be no divide. There's really no need to translate anything to "HN crowd" (by that I assume you really mean hacker community in general). Competent programmers (hackers) and really highly technical and highly competent people tend to appreciate good design (not just graphical design, but design in general) even if they don't know particularities of it. It's a matter of taste, and good taste is objective (PG already articulated this better than I could do[1] [2]).
A couple of anecdotes:
- TeX came to be because Donald Knuth was horribly annoyed with the low quality of then nascent digital typography in the first edition of The Art of Computer Programming. AMS Euler[3] typeface is a product of his collaboration with Hermann Zapf.
- The first practical application of Unix was to run the typesetting in troff for technical documentation at Bell Labs.
While I can't get too upset at CNN for not having a typography expert on speed dial, that slideshow is honestly pretty terrible.
- American Airlines famously used Helvetica for decades, but the 2013 rebrand (shown in the picture) uses a newer humanist sans family.
- Evian's logotype shares some of Helvetica's proportions, but it's clearly a different type family (the terminals on the 'e' and 'a' are totally different), possibly a highly customized Frutiger.
- Staples does use Helvetica, but that sign doesn't! I'm not sure if that's from some aborted redesign, cut-rate sign contractor, or what, but compare the size of the counters (open spaces) on both the A and the P: http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/01/02/business/ADCO/ADCO...
- It looks like Skype is using Helvetica Rounded, which is fair (it was added over 20 years after the original Helvetica family), but it's worth pointing that out instead of having an unrelated caption.
The thing about Helvetica -- its essential character -- is in its directness and balance and understatedness and purity, modulo a few well-known quirks (e.g. capital R).
When you perturb that (rounded terminals for Skype, fucked up "e" and "a" for Evian, block-skew-italic and glyph mods for Microsoft) I feel like you lose the whole point of the typeface.
Although Evian isn't, the Skype logo is based on some customized variant of Helvetica Rounded.
Other logos that clearly aren't Helvetica are the the Crate & Barrel logo pictured in the article, which is Arial, and the American Airlines typeface which appears to be a customized Frutiger (although the old version of the logo was set in Helvetica).
It's a perfectly great typeface, but far too overused.
The impact of Helvetica is quite significant, there even is a documentary about it, called Helvetica! check it out its really great. (It includes an interview with Mike Parker)
To my knowledge the original Helvetica font was created by Max Miedinger (under supervision of his boss Eduard Hoffmann) at the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei in the years 1956 and 1957 under the name "Neue Haas Grotesk". This font was already heavily influenced by Bertholds "Akzidenz Grotesk" (at my time of typesetting-apprenticeship, only professionals would be able to distinguish the two and my master always told me, the Helvetica would have been an effort to copy Akzidenz Grotesk for Linotype without paying license fees to Berthold. He was certainly wrong, but that was his perception). The company D. Stempel AG, co-owner of the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei, produced the "Neue Haas Grotesk" for Linotype machines and re-labeled it into "Helvetica" for marketing purposes.
Many years ago I read a fascinating article (I believe from Eric Spiekerman), about the efforts to re-design the forms of the Deutsche Bundespost (German state mail service). In an analysis they found more than 600 variations of Helvetica in use within the organization before the relaunch.
The 1983 effort to design the "Neue Helvetica" (by Stempel, for Linotype) was certainly motivated by this defragmentation of Helvetica-variations, and it was sort of a last conservation before DTP would do all its damages to font identity and quality.
I am not sure what Mike Parkers role was in this process, but I would assume that he came into play after 1960 and that his role was more in the realization of Helvetica's impact and value for the graphical industry, rather than the original design. Which, in my eyes, sort of disqualifies him for the godfather-title. Nevertheless, I cry for all the big names in the typo-world, as one after another dies these days.
I have seen the Helvetica documentary, and I cried tears while watching, because I grew up with Helvetica as a reader and as a professional typesetter (typesetting was a 3-year apprenticeship in Germany around 1980). There is a big cultural thing about Helvetica, that cannot be expressed in words and that is not accessible to digital natives. There is only one true Helvetica face, and it has to be used and typesetted correctly, and in this combination it clearly stands out from everything else. For me, it is the one true font. You cannot fake it. You cannot (and should not) use it for every purpose. And the font has been misused, distorted, copied, derranged, overused and betrayed in every possible way - to the degree that noone can stand it anymore.
But try to find some airplane security card from German Lufthansa from the year 1982 and you will understand, how Helvetica can be used to build trust and confidence in airflight passengers!
The Helvetica documentary was quite good in giving a vague feeling, what cultural impact can be coded in the history of one single typeface! These days are gone, though, and I feel woe and grief with the decline of cultural typographical awareness and the loss of people like Mike Parker.
In Chapter 9 "What is it about the Swiss?" Garfield writes about Helvetica "On an emotional plane, it serves several functions. It has geographical baggage, its Swiss heritage laying a backdrop of impartiality, neutrality and freshness (it helps at this point if you think of Switzerland as a place of Alps/cow bells/spring flowers rather than Zurich and its erstwhile heroin problem)." There is a longer extract from the book here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665881/how-helvetica-conquered-...
What's really great about Helvetica is that it's idiot-proof on a wide variety of browsers, and given my limited web-design experience that puts Helvetica in the "Swiss" category of robust design.
I personally prefer a more evenly kerned quasi-typewriter font like Inconsolata, but it takes a lot of work to get it looking right on all browsers.
[+] [-] rayval|12 years ago|reply
For a poignant account of his later years, and his struggle with Alzheimers, see the blog written by his ex-wife and steady friend, Sybil Masquelier. The entry "The Farewell Tour" describes their final trip to New York in 2011 to receive the Type Designers Club lifetime achievement award.
http://mikeparkerfontgod.blogspot.com/
[+] [-] austinhutch|12 years ago|reply
If I were to try and translate this for the HN crowd I would compare Helvetica to whatever you consider to be the greatest framework of all time. We stand on the shoulders of giants and Mike Parker is one of them.
[+] [-] nzp|12 years ago|reply
A couple of anecdotes:
- TeX came to be because Donald Knuth was horribly annoyed with the low quality of then nascent digital typography in the first edition of The Art of Computer Programming. AMS Euler[3] typeface is a product of his collaboration with Hermann Zapf.
- The first practical application of Unix was to run the typesetting in troff for technical documentation at Bell Labs.
[1] http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html
[2] http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMS_Euler
[+] [-] radio4fan|12 years ago|reply
Challenge accepted! It's not important.
;-)
[+] [-] normloman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 51Cards|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] candeira|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mortenjorck|12 years ago|reply
- American Airlines famously used Helvetica for decades, but the 2013 rebrand (shown in the picture) uses a newer humanist sans family.
- Evian's logotype shares some of Helvetica's proportions, but it's clearly a different type family (the terminals on the 'e' and 'a' are totally different), possibly a highly customized Frutiger.
- Staples does use Helvetica, but that sign doesn't! I'm not sure if that's from some aborted redesign, cut-rate sign contractor, or what, but compare the size of the counters (open spaces) on both the A and the P: http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/01/02/business/ADCO/ADCO...
- It looks like Skype is using Helvetica Rounded, which is fair (it was added over 20 years after the original Helvetica family), but it's worth pointing that out instead of having an unrelated caption.
[+] [-] quesera|12 years ago|reply
The thing about Helvetica -- its essential character -- is in its directness and balance and understatedness and purity, modulo a few well-known quirks (e.g. capital R).
When you perturb that (rounded terminals for Skype, fucked up "e" and "a" for Evian, block-skew-italic and glyph mods for Microsoft) I feel like you lose the whole point of the typeface.
"Based on Helvetica" is not Helvetica.
[+] [-] Springtime|12 years ago|reply
Other logos that clearly aren't Helvetica are the the Crate & Barrel logo pictured in the article, which is Arial, and the American Airlines typeface which appears to be a customized Frutiger (although the old version of the logo was set in Helvetica).
It's a perfectly great typeface, but far too overused.
[+] [-] theswan|12 years ago|reply
http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rlx0x|12 years ago|reply
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/reference
[+] [-] AlphaGeekZulu|12 years ago|reply
Many years ago I read a fascinating article (I believe from Eric Spiekerman), about the efforts to re-design the forms of the Deutsche Bundespost (German state mail service). In an analysis they found more than 600 variations of Helvetica in use within the organization before the relaunch.
The 1983 effort to design the "Neue Helvetica" (by Stempel, for Linotype) was certainly motivated by this defragmentation of Helvetica-variations, and it was sort of a last conservation before DTP would do all its damages to font identity and quality.
I am not sure what Mike Parkers role was in this process, but I would assume that he came into play after 1960 and that his role was more in the realization of Helvetica's impact and value for the graphical industry, rather than the original design. Which, in my eyes, sort of disqualifies him for the godfather-title. Nevertheless, I cry for all the big names in the typo-world, as one after another dies these days.
I have seen the Helvetica documentary, and I cried tears while watching, because I grew up with Helvetica as a reader and as a professional typesetter (typesetting was a 3-year apprenticeship in Germany around 1980). There is a big cultural thing about Helvetica, that cannot be expressed in words and that is not accessible to digital natives. There is only one true Helvetica face, and it has to be used and typesetted correctly, and in this combination it clearly stands out from everything else. For me, it is the one true font. You cannot fake it. You cannot (and should not) use it for every purpose. And the font has been misused, distorted, copied, derranged, overused and betrayed in every possible way - to the degree that noone can stand it anymore.
But try to find some airplane security card from German Lufthansa from the year 1982 and you will understand, how Helvetica can be used to build trust and confidence in airflight passengers!
The Helvetica documentary was quite good in giving a vague feeling, what cultural impact can be coded in the history of one single typeface! These days are gone, though, and I feel woe and grief with the decline of cultural typographical awareness and the loss of people like Mike Parker.
[+] [-] e15ctr0n|12 years ago|reply
In Chapter 9 "What is it about the Swiss?" Garfield writes about Helvetica "On an emotional plane, it serves several functions. It has geographical baggage, its Swiss heritage laying a backdrop of impartiality, neutrality and freshness (it helps at this point if you think of Switzerland as a place of Alps/cow bells/spring flowers rather than Zurich and its erstwhile heroin problem)." There is a longer extract from the book here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665881/how-helvetica-conquered-...
A broader article on Swiss graphic design: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/17/lessons-from-swis...
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|12 years ago|reply
Yes, sometimes, but I prefer it when the original signs tell me what sign I'm at on the New York City Subway:
IRT: http://instagram.com/p/fBVpruQAcE/
BMT: http://instagram.com/p/e0mRuswAY3/
IND: http://instagram.com/p/fBV83vQAci/
[+] [-] quarterwave|12 years ago|reply
I personally prefer a more evenly kerned quasi-typewriter font like Inconsolata, but it takes a lot of work to get it looking right on all browsers.
[+] [-] brannon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neduma|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iratedev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkuykendall-com|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] serf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Chronic26|12 years ago|reply
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