2:30 "...Helvetica fans and aficionados have demonstrated this in their unauthorized customizations and reworkings over the past 35 years. Let that sink in a moment." Oh shit, they're onto us pirating the font 🏴☠️
I find it odd that they would have so many letters like the lowercase c and e with terminals cut diagonally. the horizontal and vertical cuts of Helvetica are so so iconic to it it’s odd to remove that
I feel like they should add more Helvetica Textbook glyphs as alternate glyphs, such as an open 4, an uppercase I and J with serif bars, and a lowercase Q with a tail.
Sadly, this video completely fails to mention Christian Schwartz' Neue Haas Grotesk from 2010, which was first to bring back the alternative R and cedille, and is a great digital restauration of the original, too :). Even though Heletica Now is an exciting project, can the new Text and especially Micro versions still be called "Helvetica"? They're definitely inspired by Helvetica, but imo look quite different (like the a,l,t,G, and rounded-i-dot alternatives), that dubbing them "Helvetica Now" seems more like PR/sales move than anything... I'm not saying though that they look bad, it looks amazing, but imo also just un-Helvetica...
I strongly agree. I mean with sufficient alternate glyphs enabled in the micro variant, the font lacks the iconic a G and R. it has ONLY diagonally cut terminals, it is widely spaced and has a straight t and a curved l. What is left to allow such a thing to claim the name Helvetica? None of the characteristics of Helvetica are present.
If you have access to a mac: Find the font file in Finder, put it on a thumb drive, and transfer it to the windows machine. You'll need to transfer it to open type file format. There is a free online converter for this. That's how I got helvetica for free on my windows machine.
While this new Helvetica family has some appealing additions, there are so many missed opportunities and disappointments. For example, I'm confused why they reduce the curl on the leg of the "R", or why they didn't offer an option with a curled tail of the "Q"? (I think the straight tail on the Q looks pretty dumb on most fonts). Some alternate glyphs offering curled legs to the "K's" and "R's" would have brought an elegance to the typeface. Instead they included an alternate "a" that I see no use for, and looks completely foreign to Helvetica. The micro type is a welcome addition, as is the improved kerning and improved @ symbol. I just feel they dropped the ball with some of the styling decisions with this new family.
I like the idea but so many of the letters especially in text and micro don’t have the most iconic feature of Helvetica which is the horizontal and vertical terminals. the c and e are cut diagonally like Arial. Very very strange choice that I do not understand. You could have opened the aperture without diagonal cuts.
...so, if everybody is using it; you were making enough Money to cover everything so is time to free the typography. Also; may be I am a non believer nut many many many...many fonts look the same; the same to Helvetica or the same between them but the same or almost the same. Is kind of snob; so snob.
Yeah .. not bad .. I still like how - + = and all small letters are aligned in San Francisco for example ... the - +and = in Now are just horribly misaligned ... is there any reason for this ??
The math symbols + and = ARE aligned and centered on the numeral (and cap) height. The hyphen and dashes (em and en) are centered on the lowercase characters. The math minus sign (-) is on the glyphs palette and aligns with the other math symbols + = and x.
I'd argue Noto is more essential, since it has compatibility with EVERYTHING, and as long as Helvetica has insane licensing fees, it will not be 'essential'
