Typophile - Max Miedinger - Comments

Hello - I sent an email to

kat78 — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:39:15 -0800

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

Hoffmann and Miedinger did

swiss dots — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:59:03 -0800

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.

I don’t doubt that

dan_reynolds — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:08:15 -0800

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!

Dan, what I wrote is that

Bleisetzer — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:53:30 -0800

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

Yes, Chris understands me

dan_reynolds — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:15:50 -0800

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.

It gets about 10 mpg Dan

dezcom — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:14:19 -0800

It gets about 10 mpg Dan :-)

ChrisL

Cool! I wish that I had that

dan_reynolds — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:13:23 -0800

Cool! I wish that I had that car…

I think Dan is referring to

dezcom — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:13:19 -0800

I think Dan is referring to the hairline version. I know I saw and used Helvetica light during the 60s to.

ChrisL

Advertisement in Life. It

Nick Shinn — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:08:33 -0800

Advertisement in Life.
It was a big magazine, and the text must have been 18pt, I would guess.

…and Stempel’s! They

dan_reynolds — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:25:51 -0800

…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.

>Miedinger drew the key

William Berkson — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:21:15 -0800

>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.

Georg, you keep quoting that

dan_reynolds — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:12:37 -0800

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.

Dan, that is interesting but

William Berkson — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:35:56 -0800

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.

Right. The most weights of

Bleisetzer — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:25:18 -0800

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

>Miedinger was more art

dan_reynolds — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:53:18 -0800

>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.

Max Miedinger

andi emery — Tue, 1 Aug 2006 18:46:32 -0700

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}