A Helvetica Good Time: Helvetica Type Book

A

HELVETICA

GOOD TIME

HELVETICA

Dayna Brown 2022

Professor Tim Cox

ABLE OF CONTENTS 2.

Introduction

3.

Author: Max Meidinger

4.

Characteristics

5.

Quote

6.

Alphabet

7.

Numbers

8.

Type Anatomy

10.

Glyphs

12.

Weights & Widths

It's air, you know. It's just there. There's no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica.

Erik Spiekermann

FLAT FINALS

FLAT ASCENDER FLAT ASCENDER

H elvetica’s narrow apetures & tight tracking, HOOKED TAIL

often create a limit on how legible the font may be as it is made into smaller print sizes. While the font is often top priority for billboards and street signs it seemingly loses popularity as the size of it becomes smaller. For some cases the tracking becomes so tight in smaller sizes that it poses a huge legibility problem that steer designers to another font choice.

FLAT FINALS

CURVED LEG

ANGLED SPUR

IS THE ONLY THAT NEVER

- AUDREY HEPBURN

Light

Regular

Bold

The Cap Height Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, The Cap Height is the height consectetuer adipiscof a capital letter measured ing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euisfrom the baseline. mod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna

The Cap a line marking TheLine Cap is Line Lorem sit amet, the ipsum heightdolor of uppercase consectetuer letters withinadipisca font. ing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna

ArmArm

X-HEIGHT X-HEIGHT

CAP HEIGHT CAP HEIGHT

CAP LINE CAP LINE

DESCENDER HEIGHT DESCENDER HEIGHT

The Descender is the part The Descender Height ipsum sit of theLorem letters thatdolor extends amet,the consectetuer below baseline. adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna

Crossbar Crossbar Crotch Crotch

Descender Descender

The X-Height the height of theThe lower caseLorem letters X-Height in a line of text. ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna

The Ascender Line is the marking the The invisible Ascender line Height Lorem ipsum dolor sit height of ascenders in a font. amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna

Ascender Ascender

The Mean Line is an imaginary line running along the top of non-ascending, lowercase Mean letters. Line is the The

imaginary line running along the top of non-ascending, lowercase letters.

ASCENDER HEIGHT ASCENDER HEIGHT Terminal Terminal

MEAN LINE MEAN LINE

Finial Finial SpurSpur

BASELINE BASELINE DESCENT LINE DESCENT LINE

The Descent Line is the The Descent Line isthe the invisible invisible line marking line marking thebetween farthest distance farthest distance between and the the baselinethe andbaseline the bottom of the glyph. bottom of the glyph.

The Baseline the The invisible lineBaseline where all is the invisible characters sit. line where all

characters sit.

There’s no NEED to show off when you KNOW who you are.

-Maxime Lagacé

10

MEET MEET THE THE GLYPHS GLYPHS With a glyph set of over 812 characters, Helvetica has one of the largest numbers of characters making it 38,976 characters all together. Containing sets of both Latin and accented forms Helvetica holds superscript, inferior, denominator and numerator forms as well as a large variety of fractions, reference marks, and monetary symbols. In the OpenType category the font also features many other stylistic sets called alternate glyphs, that alter the shapes of some letters such as a rounded capital G. This allowing a designer to easily change the typographic character for headlines, pages in a book, or other type work.

HELVETICA IN

Aa Thin................................. Aa Light............................... Aa Roman............................ Aa Medium.......................... Aa Bold............................... Aa Heavy......................... Aa Ultra Light.........................

Weights & Widths

Aa Bold Oblique.....................Aa Condensed......................... Aa Bold Condensed................ Aa Extended........................ Aa Bold Extended............... Aa Oblique.............................

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