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Which Helvetica?
Our company is considering switching from Univers to Helvetica in our internal documents. Do you guys have any recommendations on which cut/foundry of Helvetica is the best? There are so many. Would love to get any opinions.
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29 Aug 2008 — 12:11pm
Have you considered Arial from Monotype?
29 Aug 2008 — 12:35pm
Of the ones I’ve used I liked AG Book best.
There are lots of alternatives to consider, too.
29 Aug 2008 — 1:07pm
Neue Helvetica from Linotype, … but changing from Univers to Helv. sounds a bit strange to me, what are the reasons for this decision?
@David
Lovely, haha
29 Aug 2008 — 2:29pm
Our company is considering switching from Univers to Helvetica in our internal documents.
Read this first.
29 Aug 2008 — 2:55pm
We have been using Univers for a long time, and we are bored of it.
29 Aug 2008 — 4:24pm
A lot of people on here are slightly bitter about Helvetica for some reason they think they are above using it. That's ironic haha.
Its what you can do with the design that will make the difference.
There are a lot of good alternatives (in the link above) and some of them could work quite well.
But none of them are Helvetica, and none of them really could replace it (but yes they are alternatives), as you will get a different feel.
Univers & Helvetica are quite different, and you will get a different feel with both of them. Helvetica is warmer than Univers and has more character.
Best Helvetica Helvetica Pro
The spacing is slightly better than others, as well as on-screen rendering (in Indesign anyway).
Akkurat is a good modern alternative, but is quite different again.
30 Aug 2008 — 9:40am
"We have been using Univers for a long time, and we are bored of it."
Believe me, I love Helvetica. If I was told that I could only use the Helvetica Neue family for the rest of my life, I'd be totally fine with that. But isn't switching from to Helvetica because you're bored with Univers kind of like switching to a Sanstone-colored car because you're bored with beige?
Have you thought about moving towards something a bit more obviously different (Meta, or something like that)?