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Max Miedinger
Posted by andi emery in
1 Aug 2006 — 6:46pm
1 Aug 2006 — 6:46pm
I am in semi-desperate need of a photo of Max Miedinger for a piece I am putting together about the design of Helvetica. I can't seem to find any photos anywhere of the man. Does anyone have a photo or a scan they can send/post? I would be eternally grateful!
Andrea
{moderator edited spelling of name}
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1 Aug 2006 — 7:14pm
andrea, i've got a few, i'll email you.
-gary
1 Aug 2006 — 7:20pm
Gary, you rock! Thanks so much!
1 Aug 2006 — 7:32pm
If you google the name Max Miedinger you get a few. http://www.frieze.com/feature_single.asp?f=720
1 Aug 2006 — 7:43pm
Yeah, I got that one (at various sizes and resolutions): thanks Martin. Gary sent me what I needed. He rocks. : )
2 Aug 2006 — 12:33am
oh are you going to post up your bit about helvetica when your finished!
2 Aug 2006 — 4:41am
Probably not, Jesse. The research is for my college curriculum and I'm just trying to fatten up what I already have with diagrams and photos. The wiki on Max does look a bit slim though. Pehaps Gary will contribute to it!
2 Aug 2006 — 10:58am
yeah, i was planning on adding to the wiki, i've got sooo much helvetica/miedinger information. will hopefully get to it later this month.
and good luck with your project, andrea.
cheers,
-gary
2 Aug 2006 — 8:14pm
ahh then i guess your students get all the good stuff. Have you any plans on providing an online course then? :P
5 Aug 2006 — 12:58pm
Andi,
it’s "Miedinger" (pronounced mee-ding-er), not "Meidinger".
A.
8 Aug 2006 — 7:28am
My question is: shouldn't we be a bit more curious about other typefaces?
I'm quite a bit tired - personally - to see so much stuff (and now a film) made on the most generic typeface of all times. I understand of course it's importance in the context of the modernist movement and that it's a well crafted piece of design.
Shouldn't we be over this font, especially when we can all agree of it's very limited use in contemporary typography? (no italics, small caps, old style figures, ... and not very good for signage and very poor for reading enjoyment, ...)?
Do we, subconsciously, long for the “generic/inexpressive“ in design?
8 Aug 2006 — 7:48am
I don't think it's subconscious. A designer must choose, and sometimes he/she probably feels an expressive/alluding type face steals the focus. I'm no fan of Helvetica, but I see a point in using it because it has been so overexposed it's as if it's considered entirely featureless, which it's not.
ƒ
8 Aug 2006 — 7:50am
Adam: Noted, thank you.
(memo to self: i before e except after c...)
8 Aug 2006 — 8:44am
We should indeed be curious about other typefaces. The problem is, are they all film material? Do they have the recognition and broad exposure to make film the medium of choice or is a book or magazine or Journal article the best place to portray type?
We type lovers would all rush out to see any film about type (since there have been SO many) but the cost and time to make a film means you have to find a broader audience. You can argue the case for a few other typefaces as well but Helvetica is certainly on the list for either the love or hate kinds of interest which would entice film viewing.
ChrisL
8 Aug 2006 — 10:50am
Ken Russell makes Eric Gill film?
Tim
8 Aug 2006 — 11:02am
Lair of the Notan with Theresa Russell as white space.
20 Jan 2007 — 10:22pm
hi
i am doing a project on helvetica and its designer. if any one has more info and pics could u kindly post it or direct me to it? thank u
21 Jan 2007 — 1:38pm
The notoriety of Helvetica within the design community is as much a reason for the documentary as the type's ubiquity. That provides a modicum of drama: talking head vs. talking head. Because from what I've seen of the doc so far, it's unlikely to be as unequivocal as, say, An Inconvenient Truth.
As Erik mentioned on another thread, Miedinger was more art director than designer--right up there with Morison, "excogitator" (his own term) of Times Roman.
21 Jan 2007 — 1:55pm
Ken Russell makes Eric Gill film
Alfonso Cuarón makes Sweynham & Pannartz movie.
Opens with the burning of Mainz (critics will think Baghdad) and the future of civilisation (printing) in the balance as the printers escape with their press on a donkey cart, over the Alps.
21 Jan 2007 — 9:53pm
>Miedinger was more art director than designer
Well, Edouard Hoffmann was more like Neue Haas Grotesk's art director. This doesn't negate that Miedinger was more art director than designer, too. But designers keep tending to want to give Miedinger the design credit for Neue Haas Grotesk/Helvetica, and this isn't exactly accurate.
22 Jan 2007 — 5:25am
Right.
The most weights of Helvetica were designed after 1961.
Max Miedinger designed the regular and the bold version starting in 1937, but finishing it and been produced by Haas in 1957.
So I for myself list it in my "Schriftensammlung" in this way. I think its correcter.
Georg
22 Jan 2007 — 5:35am
Dan, that is interesting but confusing. If they were both art directors of the project who actually drew it? Did Haas have a drawing office? What was their role?
Georg, are you sure about 1937? Both the wiki and typowiki have it as being done in the 50s.
22 Jan 2007 — 6:12am
Georg, you keep quoting that 1937 number, which is totaly false! Someone made a typing errror on the internet; Max Medinger was not working on any typeface design that woule become Helvetica, or anything else, in 1937. I've mentioned this before on other forums. Why do you believe it anyway?
William, Hoffmann was Miedinger's boss, and he commissioned the work. Miedinger drew the key characters of one or two weights for Hoffmann's approval. These typefaces were then produced by Haas. I don't know who in their design offices worked on completing the sketches. After a few years, Stempel and Linotype in Frankfurt took over the typeface, developing it into the super family that we now know as Helvetica.
22 Jan 2007 — 6:21am
>Miedinger drew the key characters of one or two weights
Sounds to me like a substantial portion of the credit (or blame!) goes to the people in the Haas drawing office.
22 Jan 2007 — 6:25am
…and Stempel's! They made most of the family's weights. Helvetica has more than just regular, bold, etc. Think about all of the heavies and the headline things.
The really light and thin designs came in the 1980s, when Stempel/Linotype released Neue Helvetica.
22 Jan 2007 — 7:08am
Advertisement in Life.
It was a big magazine, and the text must have been 18pt, I would guess.
22 Jan 2007 — 7:13am
I think Dan is referring to the hairline version. I know I saw and used Helvetica light during the 60s to.
ChrisL
22 Jan 2007 — 7:13am
Cool! I wish that I had that car…
22 Jan 2007 — 7:14am
It gets about 10 mpg Dan :-)
ChrisL
22 Jan 2007 — 7:15am
Yes, Chris understands me :(
[Old] Helvetica does indeed have a light version, whose letters look like Nick's sample.
Neue Helvetica, in addition to a light weight, has two thinner weights: "35 Thin" and "25 Ultra Light." These are the really, really thin weights (hairlines) that we are used to seeing today.
22 Jan 2007 — 7:53am
Dan,
what I wrote is that Max Miedinger started the design of this font in 1937. And its written in a biography I read some years ago. But it was produced from Haas 1957.
http://www.fontblog.de/wie-helvetica-zu-ihrem-namen-kam
I think there is nothing wrong for a designer to realize an idea a long time before this idea becomes a product.
I promis to look for the biography and to send title and author when I start to organize the move of PBM next month.
Georg
22 Jan 2007 — 8:08am
I don't doubt that Miedinger was already working by 1937; but to imply (without any record, sample drawings, etc) that he spent 20 years working a the design of Neue Haas Grotesk makes the story more complicated than it probably was. It also implies that Miedinger was already working on the design before Hoffmann commissioned it, which I doubt is the case. If this were true, then Hoffmann and the Haas production team might deserve less credit, where in my opinion they actually deserve more credit than they have gotten!
22 Jan 2007 — 3:59pm
Hoffmann and Miedinger did not begin work on Neue Haas Grotesk until around 1954 I believe, at least that's when the original drawings and proofs I've seen are dated. Miedinger defintely did not do any work on the design of Neue Haas Grotesk prior to the '50s.
17 Feb 2008 — 3:39am
Hello - I sent an email to andi - but it seems that the email address isn't available anymore!Here's the original message i sent:
HELLO ANDI!
It seems that I've got the same problem - I'm in the middle of finishing
my final-examination-work - and I have to write something about the
designers of the fonts I used - and I don't find an adequate picture of
Max Miedinger...
Would you mind to forward yours to me?
Thank you so much in advance for your reply!
Katharina from the Black-Forest-Region/Germany