Hi! I’m Ricky, one of the platform guys here at 20i.
Alongside my love of all things tech, I’m also a keen gym-goer, foodie (I love a decent Sunday roast at a nice country pub) and dog owner (Dexter the French Bulldog).
But, I also harbour a secret: I am a font/typography nerd and I love Helvetica.
For me, Helvetica is civilization, and without it, we have nothing. In my opinion, it is to the typeface what Volkswagen is to the car; what Super Mario is to gaming; what 20i is to hosting; what LED is to lighting.
Please allow me to quote from Wikipedia:
“Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 60s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century.”
So, what is it that I like about Helvetica?
A font is a choice of tool which allows the author to style how they communicate their message to the reader.
Ideally, the message should be communicated as efficiently as possible, and Helvetica achieves this.
It is compact (tightly spaced), it isn’t wasteful (it’s a sans-serif), and it is highly legible (terminal strokes are horizontally/ vertically cut).
IT at my school was taught during the Archimedes era (remember them?) and the word processing software came with only the following fonts:
| Font | What I thought (aged 15) |
| Times New Roman | Too formal, difficult to read when small |
| Courier | Too computery! |
| Brush Script | Eugh. No. |
| Helvetica | Ahh, yes. Definitely yes |
| Comic Sans | Just kidding, this wasn’t around when I was at school, thankfully |
And now aged 45, I still think the very same thing, and it seems I’m not alone.
The Wikipedia page for Brush Script says that it was voted #3 in “Least Favourite” nomination in the 2007 designers’ survey, and #5 in “The 8 Worst Fonts In The World” list in Simon Garfield’s 2010 book.
It turns out that 15-year-old me was onto something.
Simon Garfield actually dedicated a whole chapter to the systemic hatred of Brush Script in his brilliant book Just My Type (a must-read if you want to understand why fonts make people so emotional).
But back to the king of typefaces.
What makes Helvetica so fascinating is its ability to be two completely contradictory things at once.
It is modern, yet timeless. It’s neat, tidy, and highly civilised, while somehow managing to feel intensely corporate and completely anti-corporate at the same time.
It doesn’t scream for your attention; it just delivers the message and gets out of the way.
It hasn’t always been viewed as the pinnacle of sophistication, though.
Helvetica’s roots lie in the “Neue Haas Grotesk” typeface. In the type-design world, “Grotesque” (or Grotesk in German) originally meant exactly what you think it means: ugly and deformed.
When the first sans-serif fonts appeared in the 19th century, the design community – who were used to ornate, curly serifs – thought they looked hideous and alien.
Over time, the shock wore off, and “Grotesque” simply became the industry shorthand for a clean, early sans-serif.
That “ugly” heritage evolved into the ultimate shape-shifter of the digital age. You literally cannot escape its influence across modern operating systems, whether you realise it or not.
On Windows, you see its DNA smoothed out in fonts like Tahoma and Verdana.
On Linux, Arial fills the void as its ubiquitous, metric-compatible twin.
And on macOS, Apple’s love affair with clean typography has kept Helvetica (and its spiritual successor, San Francisco) hardcoded into the system’s DNA.
There are even a couple of fantastic deep-dive videos on YouTube: one exploring how Helvetica saved the NYC subway…
…and another tracking its history:
You can see this visual conquest clearest in corporate branding. Just look at how modern company logos have evolved over the last few decades.
Brands have aggressively stripped away gradients, shadows, and 3D effects, flattening their identities into a single color and a clean typeface. More often than not, that typeface is Helvetica.
Take Jeep, for instance. Their logo is pure, unadulterated Helvetica Bold. It’s rugged, utilitarian, and somehow perfectly suited for a 4×4.
But then you look at Lufthansa, Target, Panasonic, or even Microsoft’s classic branding, and you realise they are all using the exact same tool to tell completely different stories.
Trends come and go. We’ll see tech companies experiment with quirky serifs or hyper-futuristic geometry over the next few years, but everything eventually gravitates back to the centre.
Helvetica isn’t a fad. Because it hits that perfect cross-section of ultimate legibility and zero pretense, it will continue to be a staple of human communication forever.
Without it, we really do have nothing.
If you like this read more of Ricky’s love letters:
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