designed in 1957, the helvetica font is an icon of swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s and 60s. the balanced and neutral appearance of helvetica forgoes a high degree of expressivity – a quality for which it is both criticized and admired. this polarization has helped to gain it unparalleled notoriety. helvetica is far and away the most widely used of all typefaces; according to a survey by the berliner fontshop-archiv, it tops the list of the hundred best fonts of all time. this publication retraces helvetica’s fifty-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the twentieth century, and examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread. numerous illustrations show a multitude of ways the font has been used in five decades from a wide variety of fields – from signal design to party flyers.