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-...
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.