Neue Haas Grotesk is a contemporary, geometric sans-serif font family created by renowned type designer Christian Schwartz. Its origins trace back to 1957-1958, when Swiss designer Max Miedinger crafted the first weights for Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei, under the art direction of Eduard Hoffmann. The typeface was conceived as a response to the popularity of British and German grotesques, drawing inspiration from the emerging functionalist style of Swiss typography.
Shortly after its initial creation, Neue Haas Grotesk was revised and released as Helvetica by Linotype AG. The transition from its original design to the Linotype version involved significant modifications, as the typeface had to be adapted for use on Linotype’s hot metal linecasters. As a result, Helvetica became a transformed version of Miedinger’s design, with changes like the narrowing of the Bold weight to match the Regular's width. Further adjustments were made during the shift from metal type to phototypesetting, and in the 1980s, Neue Helvetica was developed as a more standardized, rationalized version of the original.
Christian Schwartz’s digital revival of Neue Haas Grotesk was a deliberate effort to restore the design’s original warmth and character, which had been lost over time due to technological adaptations. “Much of the warm personality of Miedinger’s shapes was lost along the way,” Schwartz explained. Rather than attempting to improve on Helvetica or reimagine its current digital versions, Schwartz treated the project as a restoration, aiming to bring Miedinger’s original typeface back to life with as much fidelity to the original design as possible, while incorporating modern improvements like kerning—an added luxury in the era of handset type.
Schwartz’s revival was commissioned in 2004 by Mark Porter for a redesign of The Guardian, although it was ultimately not used. The project was completed in 2010 for Richard Turley at Bloomberg Businessweek, with the thinnest weight of the family designed by Berton Hasebe. Today, Neue Haas Grotesk stands as a refined and faithful representation of Miedinger’s pioneering work, blending historical significance with contemporary typographic needs.
Post a Comment