It is the quintessential sans serif font, timeless and neutral, and can be used for all types of communication. The Neue Helvetica sets new standards in terms of its form and number of variants. The second figure gives information on the width and orientation of the font: Helvetica 53 extended to Helvetica 57 condensed. The first figure of the number describes the stroke thickness: 25 ultra light to 95 extra black. The designation “55 roman” forms the central point. The basic font weight, “Helvetica roman”, is at the heart of this numbering system. The original numbering system for the weight designations came from the numbering of the Univers font. Today, this family consists of 51 different font weights.

Stempel AG redesigned and digitized the “Neue Helvetica” typeface for Linotype and made it a self-contained font family. Over the years, Helvetica was expanded to include many different weights, but these were not coordinated with each other. The original letterforms of Helvetica had to be modified for the Linotype system. It forms an integral part of many printers and operating systems. This typeface, designed by Max Miedinger and other project members at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei, has become one of the most famous and popular typefaces in the world, thanks to the marketing strategy of Stempel and Linotype.