Helvetica Compressed
I’m posting this page from Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter in an attempt to correct some misinformation about Helvetica Compressed that is being spread without citation elsewhere online.
Carter’s captions in the original panel (which are just barely legible in the book’s reproduction) tell a definitive story of the origins of Helvetica Compressed:
“A set of three faces designed in 1966 for the Linofilm phototypesetter. Although they were considered part of the Helvetica family – for marketing reasons – these faces had their real origin in a pre-Helvetica sanserif that appeared in a Swiss book on lettering in 1954 [Armin Haab and Alex Stocker’s Lettera, Vol. 1: A Standard Book of Fine Lettering, published by Verlag Niggli AG]. Schmalfette Grotesk, as it was simply known, was never made as type but was pasted up as stats for headlines in the German magazine Twen. Twen, a major influence in graphic design in the ’60s, was designed by the incomparable Willy Fleckhaus. Three spreads below.
“Helvetica Compressed was an attempt to capture the strength of the Twen face (and avoid the hideous shapes of Letraset’s Compacta), add a lowercase, and expand it into a three-face series.”
Carter’s captions also do a great job explaining the quantized unit system from the old Linofilm phototypesetters, and their influence on the design of the Helvetica Compressed series:
“The Linofilm had a relatively coarse spacing system with only 15 discrete widths that characters could occupy, measured from 4 to 18 units. The three possible 1-2-3 integer progressions required by lowercase characters with one, two, and three vertical stems are shown in this diagram. Thus the mechanics of the Linofilm effectively determined the weights and widths of these three faces.”
In an email conversation with Carter (included in the comments below), he clarified that he designed the Compressed and Extra Compressed styles in 1966, and oversaw Hans-Jürg (sometimes misspelled as “Hans Jörg”) Hunziker’s design of the Ultra Compressed style in 1968. Hunziker also designed the specimen for the whole family.
Helvetica Compressed
I’m posting this page from Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter in an attempt to correct some misinformation about Helvetica Compressed that is being spread without citation elsewhere online.
Carter’s captions in the original panel (which are just barely legible in the book’s reproduction) tell a definitive story of the origins of Helvetica Compressed:
“A set of three faces designed in 1966 for the Linofilm phototypesetter. Although they were considered part of the Helvetica family – for marketing reasons – these faces had their real origin in a pre-Helvetica sanserif that appeared in a Swiss book on lettering in 1954 [Armin Haab and Alex Stocker’s Lettera, Vol. 1: A Standard Book of Fine Lettering, published by Verlag Niggli AG]. Schmalfette Grotesk, as it was simply known, was never made as type but was pasted up as stats for headlines in the German magazine Twen. Twen, a major influence in graphic design in the ’60s, was designed by the incomparable Willy Fleckhaus. Three spreads below.
“Helvetica Compressed was an attempt to capture the strength of the Twen face (and avoid the hideous shapes of Letraset’s Compacta), add a lowercase, and expand it into a three-face series.”
Carter’s captions also do a great job explaining the quantized unit system from the old Linofilm phototypesetters, and their influence on the design of the Helvetica Compressed series:
“The Linofilm had a relatively coarse spacing system with only 15 discrete widths that characters could occupy, measured from 4 to 18 units. The three possible 1-2-3 integer progressions required by lowercase characters with one, two, and three vertical stems are shown in this diagram. Thus the mechanics of the Linofilm effectively determined the weights and widths of these three faces.”
In an email conversation with Carter (included in the comments below), he clarified that he designed the Compressed and Extra Compressed styles in 1966, and oversaw Hans-Jürg (sometimes misspelled as “Hans Jörg”) Hunziker’s design of the Ultra Compressed style in 1968. Hunziker also designed the specimen for the whole family.