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IBM's Quest To Design The 'New Helvetica' (fastcodesign.com)
IBM released its new bespoke typeface IBM Plex in beta this week. The company is hoping that the new typeface would become just as iconic as Helvetica in the years to come. From a Fast Co Design story: "When I came to IBM, it was a big discussion: Why does IBM not have a bespoke typeface? Why are we still clinging on to Helvetica?" Mike Abbink, the typeface's designer and IBM's executive creative director of brand experience and design said. To uncover what the typeface should express, Abbink and his team took a deep dive into IBM's archives. They were especially interested in the company's history in the postwar years, when its design-led business strategy first took shape and the legendary practitioner Paul Rand, who defined design as a system of relationships, created its famous eight-bar logo. In Rand's logo, Abbink and his team saw a contrast between hard edges -- the engineered, rational, and mechanical -- and curves -- the softer more humanistic elements. It's a reflection of the man-and-machine relationship that runs through the company's history -- a dynamic that is reflected in the final form of IBM Plex. The Plex family includes a sans serif, serif, and monospace versions. The designers also created a rigorous style guide that's akin to a digital standards manual and includes a type scale, which plays into responsive displays; eight different weights (a nod to how the IBM logo is composed of eight horizontally stacked bars); and usage guidelines, which dive into everything from information hierarchies to color and ragging. All together, it's easy to see Plex as a gentler, friendlier, more casual Helvetica for a broad range of uses both digital and print-based.
I have to agree. Too many people get wrapped up in the idea that "old is bad - change is a necessity". The world isn't that simplistic.
Fonts and typefaces are not technology. THEY DO NOT BECOME OUTDATED. If Helvetica works, then it works. There's no need to create busy work to replace it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You have no idea what you are talking about.
As solid of a rebuttal as I've seen. But typefaces are centuries old technology. It's a problem that has been solved and well studies. The problems that a typeface solves are not problems that change rapidly. A 19th century typeface can be considered quite readable and elegant to our modern eyes, and why shouldn't it, the 19th century is still well in the modern era.
If IBM wants to spend their money to enhance our artistic world
An astounding point of view on the craft of technical writing. And I strongly disagree that manuals are art. The expression of facts is philosophically different than artistic expression and has a different value to society at large.
It is none of your business
This is a web forum and we've established that this is the topic of conversation. Everyone gets to weigh in and play at armchair graphics designer.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire