Linotype added more weights and versions, after which the renamed and newly expanded family was heavily promoted. When Linotype acquired Haas’s parent company, the Stempel Type Foundry, they changed Neue Haas Grotesk’s name to Helvetica (an adaptation of “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland) to reflect its Swiss heritage. This new design was subsequently named Neue Haas Grotesk (meaning “New Haas Sans Serif”) to reflect its origin. Managing director Eduard Hoffmann commissioned it to be a neutral, legible, sans serif typeface and to compete with other popular sans serifs of the day, specifically Akzidenz Grotesk.

It was originally designed by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland. Helvetica is the older of the two fonts, with its beginnings in print. While many designers have strong opinions about one or the other, most would be hard pressed to tell you exactly what the differences between them are. While the two might seem similar at a glance, they are most definitely different in history, design, and intended usage. You can see these fonts in print, on the web, and in other digital media, such as movie titles, eBooks, apps, and the like. Helvetica and Arial are the names of two typefaces known to just about every designer, as well as many non-professional computer users.

The differences in the cap R make it one of the easiest ways to tell Helvetica (in white) from Arial (in pink), particularly the design of the leg of the R.

Adobe acrobat fonts helvetica neue