Helvetica® font family


Designed by  Linotype Design Studio in 1961
Max Miedinger
Helvetica is one of the most famous and popular typefaces in the world. It lends an air of lucid efficiency to any typographic message with its clean, no-nonsense shapes. The original typeface was called Neue Haas Grotesk, and was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger for the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) in Switzerland. In 1960 the name was changed to Helvetica (an adaptation of Helvetia", the Latin name for Switzerland).

Over the years, the Helvetica family was expanded to include many different weights, but these were not as well coordinated with each other as they might have been. In 1983, D. Stempel AG and Linotype re-designed and digitized Neue Helvetica and updated it into a cohesive font family. At the beginning of the 21st Century, Linotype again released an updated design of Helvetica, the Helvetica World typeface family. This family is much smaller in terms of its number of fonts, but each font makes up for this in terms of language support. Helvetica World supports a number of languages and writing systems from all over the globe.

Today, the original Helvetica family consists of 34 different font weights. 20 weights are available in Central European versions, supporting the languages of Central and Eastern Europe. 20 weights are also available in Cyrillic versions, and four are available in Greek versions.

Many customers ask us what good non-Latin typefaces can be mixed with Helvetica. Fortunately, Helvetica already has Greek and Cyrillic versions, and Helvetica World includes a specially-designed Hebrew Helvetica in its OpenType character set.
Helvetica has also been extende to Georgian and a special "eText" version has been designed with larger xheight and opened counters for the use in small point sizes and on E-reader devices. But Linotype also offers a number of CJK fonts that can be matched with Helvetica.

Chinese fonts that pair well with Helvetica:
DF Hei (Simplified Chinese)
DF Hei (Traditional Chinese)
DF Li Hei (Traditional Chinese)
DFP Hei (Simplified Chinese)

Japanese fonts that pair well with Helvetica:
DF Gothic
DF Gothic P
DFHS Gothic

Korean fonts that pair well with Helvetica:
DFK Gothic"

Helvetica Oblique

Desktop fonts are designed to be installed on a computer for use with applications. Licensed per user.
Annual web fonts are licensed for a set number of page views.
Annual web fonts are licensed for a set number of page views.
Application licensing allows fonts to be embedded in your software applications. The license may be based on the number of titles or the number of installations.
Electronic Document Fonts can be embedded in an eBook, eMagazine or eNewspaper. Fonts are licensed annually per issue.
Server fonts can be installed on a server and e.g. used by automated processes to create items. A license is per server core CPU per year.
A Digital Ads license allows you to embed web fonts in digital ads, such as ads created in HTML5. These license is based on the number of ad impressions.
Helvetica


Select technical format and
language support of the font.
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Std / OT CFF

supports at least

21 languages.















Technical details
Digital data from:
OpenType outline flavour:
CFF - PostScript-Outlines
Technical font names:
File name: HelveticaLTStd-Obl.otf
Windows menu name: Helvetica LT Std
PostScript name: , HelveticaLTStd-Obl
PostScript full name: , Helvetica LT Std Oblique
Catalog number:
167444624
Characters:
382
US$ 42.99
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Features

Languages

Fractions

Tag: frac

Function: Replaces figures separated by a slash with 'common' (diagonal) fractions. The user enters 3/4 in a recipe and gets the threequarters fraction.

Localized Forms

Tag: locl

Function: Many scripts used to write multiple languages over wide geographical areas have developed localized variant forms of specific letters, which are used by individual literary communities. For example, a number of letters in the Bulgarian and Serbian alphabets have forms distinct from their Russian counterparts and from each other. In some cases the localized form differs only subtly from the script 'norm', in others the forms are radically distinct. This feature enables localized forms of glyphs to be substituted for default forms. The user applies this feature to text to enable localized Bulgarian forms of Cyrillic letters; alternatively, the feature might enable localized Russian forms in a Bulgarian manufactured font in which the Bulgarian forms are the default characters.

Ordinals

Tag: ordn

Function: Replaces default alphabetic glyphs with the corresponding ordinal forms for use after figures. One exception to the follows-a-figure rule is the numero character (U+2116), which is actually a ligature substitution, but is best accessed through this feature. The user applies this feature to turn 2.o into 2.o (abbreviation for secundo).

Superscript

Tag: sups

Function: Replaces lining or oldstyle figures with superior figures (primarily for footnote indication), and replaces lowercase letters with superior letters (primarily for abbreviated French titles). The application can use this feature to automatically access the superior figures (more legible than scaled figures) for footnotes, or the user can apply it to Mssr to get the classic form.

Contextual Ligatures

Tag: clig

Function: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph which is preferred for typographic purposes. Unlike other ligature features, clig specifies the context in which the ligature is recommended. This capability is important in some script designs and for swash ligatures. The glyph for ft replaces the sequence f t in Bickham Script, except when preceded by an ascending letter.

Kerning

Tag: kern

Function: Adjusts amount of space between glyphs, generally to provide optically consistent spacing between glyphs. Although a well-designed typeface has consistent inter-glyph spacing overall, some glyph combinations require adjustment for improved legibility. Besides standard adjustment in the horizontal direction, this feature can supply size-dependent kerning data via device tables, "cross-stream" kerning in the Y text direction, and adjustment of glyph placement independent of the advance adjustment. Note that this feature may apply to runs of more than two glyphs, and would not be used in monospaced fonts. Also note that this feature does not apply to text set vertically. The o is shifted closer to the T in the combination "To."

These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in d

Tag: Basic Latin

Function: These fonts support the Basic Latin character set. Each font is Unicode™ encoded, and available in different formats. Please review the product information for each font to ensure it will meet your requirements.