It is the quintessential sans serif font, timeless and neutral, and can be used for all types of communication. The Helvetica family now forms an integral part of many digital printers and operating systems and has become a stylistic anchor in our visual culture. Today, the original Helvetica family consists of 34 different font weights, and the Neue Helvetica family consists of 51 font weights. Stempel AG and Linotype re-designed and digitized Neue Helvetica and updated it into a cohesive font family. 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 1960 the name was changed to Helvetica (an adaptation of Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland). The original typeface was called Haas Grotesk, and was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger for the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) in Switzerland. It lends an air of lucid efficiency to any typographic message with its clean, no-nonsense shapes. Helvetica is one of the most famous and popular typefaces in the world.
