Blanka and Candy in association with Veer present '50' celebrating 50 years of Helvetica.

2007 sees the fiftieth anniversary of Helvetica. Created in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas type foundry in Switzerland, the typeface was originally christened Neue Haas Grotesk. Its name changed to Helvetica in 1960 in an attempt to take the typeface to a wider international audience.Over the years the typeface has been celebrated widely and used in many renowned applications, implanting its own indelible place in design history. From the beautifully implemented New York Subway signage system by Vignelli to its usage on the lowly generic EXIT sign, the flexibility of the typeface seems to have no boundaries.

Each artist was allocated a random year [1957 - 2006] from Helvetica's lifetime. From this they were asked to create an image based on an event of creative or cultural significance which occured during their allocated year. The artist were asked to consider the relevance of Helvetica when creating their final piece, there were no other rules applied other than if they used a typeface it must be Helvetica.

The '50' exhibition runs at the Design Museum in 2 installments before travelling around the UK and the world.
1957 - 1981: 19 July - 9 August.
1982 - 2006: 10 August - 31 August

Contributors incluce: The Designers Republic, Farrow, Antoine et Manuel, Experimental Jetset, Parra, Build, James Jarvis, Rinzen, Genevieve Gauckler, Adrian Shaughnessy and Phunkstudio to name a few.

Design Museum | Shad Thames | London SE1 2YD