from helvetica to holland

When I started out on this little series I knew that I'd eventually reach a letter of the alphabet that was going to prove difficult. I thought it might be X or Z (and that still might be), but I hadn't expected it to be H. Because I freely admit that in the whole of my career I've never used a font beginning with H that wasn't Helvetica. And I'd wager that you haven't either. But perseverance often pays off (as if you need to tell that to a Taurean), and some rooting around has thrown up a couple of real gems from our friends over in the flatlands.

Here's Haarlemmer: and it's a recreation of a typeface designed by Jan van Krimpen that was never produced. The original, drawn in the late 1930s, was created for the Dutch Society for the Art of Printing and Books and was to be used to set a new edition of the Bible, using Monotype typesetting. Hence the problem: fonts for metal typesetting machines like the Linotype and Monotype had to be created within a crude system of predetermined character width values. Every letter had to fit within and have its spacing determined by a grid of only 18 units. Often, the italic characters had to share the same widths as those in the Roman design. Van Krimpen believed this severely impaired the design process.

The invasion of Holland in World War II halted all work on the Bible project, and the original Haarlemmer never went into production. Flash forward about sixty years. Frank E. Blokland, of The Dutch Type Library, wanted to revive the original Haarlemmer, but this time as van Krimpen would have intended. Blokland reinterpreted the original drawings and created a typeface that matched, as much as possible, van Krimpen’s initial concept. While van Krimpen’s hand could no longer be on the tiller, a thorough study of his work made up for his absence.

And next comes Hollander: designed in 1986 by Gerard Unger. The name of this font stems from the font’s similarity to the Dutch styles of van Dijk and Voskens, two Dutch type designer from the 17th century. Hollander makes a robust impression and maintains its quality even on inferior-quality paper. When used as a display face, Hollander is an excellent companion to one of Unger’s most successful text faces, Swift.

So there you have it: happy to have hopped over to Holland.

Comments

[Alex]

I can't hide the fact that I'm a great fan of ever-elegant Hoefler Text myself...

http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100010

[Alex]

... very interesting post though; I rudely forgot to put that in my last comment.

[Marc Garnaut]

Hi David

I've got to admit, I never noticed I didn't use any H fonts until you pointed it out =p
Mind you, the number of variations of Helvetica makes it crowded in there.

=) Marc