Some Random Dude

akidentz grotesk, fruitiger, gill sans, futura, avant garde

Yeah, good catch on Akzidenz Grotesk, that should have been in there. The others were purposely left out as they were either more on the humanistic side (Frutiger and Gill Sans) or more stylistic (Futura and Avante Garde). All four are great fonts which I use on many occasions, but I just didn’t think they fit in the same genre as a Helvetica.

Very good catch on Grotesk though. Thanks so much. :)

Interstate definitely takes away the trophy in my book. Clear yet tastefully distinctive font with heaps of personality.

[...] Typographic Approach: Alternatives to Helvetica Hmm. I would choose Akzidenz Grotesk over all of these… Please people learn how to respect and spell Akzidenz Grotesk. [...]

[...] Today I received a comment on my post entitled Headers, part II from Ryan Brill that encouraged me to look further into my CSS files in my WordPress software. I have looked at these files before, but frankly, I am a little intimidated to start working on them until I have sketched out a rudimentary blog design. Today, however, I clicked confidently into my CSS file and looked for something simple that I could change. I decided on my blog font. I started changing the font in the file and then refreshing my blog to see how it looked. If you went to my blog today, you could have caught it in a myriad of fonts including Frutiger, Futura, Century Gothic, Berkeley, etc. I even almost changed it to DIN in order to get a reaction from my resident expert. [...]

Definitely Akzidenz Grotesk. It’s my personal favorite.
Elsner & Flake’s TV Nord is a good one, but i prefer Trade Gothic over that one, like you said we might.
http://www.veer.com/search/results.aspx?keyword=tv+nord&pricemodel=RF,RM&producttype=IMG,ILL,TYP

Zurich should be mentioned here, as it looks more helvetica-ish than Univers does in my little opinion.
Great article, though, thank you very much.

[...] – Typographie : des alternatives à l’indétronable Helvetica. [...]

News Gothic perhaps deserves a mention.

[...] Check out: Typographic Alternatives to Helvetica and Typography on the Web – Beauty is Not Letterform Deep. [...]

Franklin Gothic and News Gothic are actually two branches of an entire family or system of fonts designed by Morris Fuller Benton, which includes Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, Alternate Gothic and Lightline Gothic. These were all consolidated and expanded into a single family called Benton Sans, issued by Font Bureau.

http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/BentonSans

Definitely good to know. Thanks for the info. :)

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Helvetica by far is the best designed typeface of all time and Akzidenz Grotesk is a close runner-up. If designers have a difficult time creating a design using Helvetica and can NOT make it have any “humanistic” qualities, they should get a job flipping burgers at Burger King!

Myriad Pro ships with Photoshop. Its not popular but don’t overlook it. It has a nice width to the characters which makes very legible. I’ve also heard a rumor that Mac uses it for all their corporate material.

[...] ??????? ??? 13 ???????????? ??? Helvetica; ????? ??? ????? ??????? ????? ??? P.J. Onori ??? somerandomdude.net “Unlike some of the more humanistic and hyper-styled fonts, I feel the clean machinist fonts act as a neutral style element for a design. There are places where Gill Sans, Kabel and other unique san serifs just are not going to work, whereas I feel that the Helvetica-ish fonts will intrude much less with other styles.” [...]

Eduard – I understand what you’re saying, but Helvetica is not intrinsically a humanistic typeface. It may have humanistic qualities, but it is not, say, a Gill Sans.

Kris – I actually really enjoy Myriad, I just never use it for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because Myriad is the default font in Illustrator and I have some ingrained propensity not to use default fonts. ;)

[...] Suggested alternatives to Helvetica from FontShop and SomerandomDude [...]

Thank you for this nice typographic overview.

[...] Eine der am meist genutzen Schriftarten aller Zeiten ist die Helvetica. Sie wurde 1957 vom Zürcher Grafiker Max Miedinger gestaltet und unter dem Namen Neue Haas-Grotesk herausgebracht. Später sollte sie zunächst in "Helvetia" umbenannt werden, was wegen warenzeichenrechtlicher Probleme jedoch wieder verworfen wurde (Helvetia ist der lateinische Name der Schweiz). Die Helvetica gehört zur Gruppe der serifenlosen Groteskschriften und fand viele Nachamer. Durch die ähnlich geschnittene Arial, die als Standardschrift auf Windows und Mac Systemen ausgeliefert wird, hat auch die Helvetica Einzug ins World Wide Web gehalten. Die Schrift ist sogar so berühmt, dass es einen Film über sie gibt. Neben der Frutiger (und Derivaten) gehört die Helvetica zu meinen Lieblingsschriften. [...]

I am seeking knowledge as to what font(s) and characteristics maintain the best
quality when projected through a digital projector on to an 8-foot screen.

I am a photographer/poet and currently in the changeover from 35mm slide projection to
digital image projection of my own image designs. My projected works include, for the most part, more than a few lines of text; the text quality suffers a significant loss in quality because of the lower resolution limits of current digital projection technology of about 100dpi (dots per inch); non-digital images are typically at 300 dpi.

Any light that you may shine on this issue that will provide improvement of projected text would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Bernie MacDonald

[...] alternatives pour les addicts [...]

I like futura, anivers, and calibri. I don’t even have Helvetica on here. What so good about it?

TV Nord comes in many more weights. See for instance the E+F website, or veer.com. But maybe that’s a recent change.

[...] Typographic Alternatives to Helvetica Univers, Franklin Gothic, Interstate, DIN, Transit, Brown Gothic, TV Nord 0 comments [...]

[...] Coles write about alternatives to Gill Sans and Helvetica, and the latter received plenty of coverages, but what about alternative to well-but-less known typefaces, like Jenson, Bembo, [...]

+ Neuzeit S., ARS Region and many more

I agree with akzidenz, but, why avant garde? avant garde is absolutely out of helvetica’s basket.
I think futura and univers are always excellent options, but if you want to use something absolutely like helvetica, use arial, its great! *joke*

Myriad Pro?

What about folio?