Rotesk
is Moritz Zimmer’s take on the World’s most ubiquitous typeface, Helvetica.
An ever-green favourite among designers everywhere, Helvetica is anything but dead. Like any piece of living and breathing popular culture, it is always undergoing changes based on current styles and tastes.
Ever since North American retailer Target’s gradual change from Neue Helvetica to a proprietary Helvetica with rounded dots, I was fascinated with the idea of evolving the typeface, and wanted to re-draw Helvetica as my own, original design.
What changed?
Everything. The entire Typeface has been re-drawn based on the studies of countless different Versions of Helvetica, Akzidenz Grotesk and others, to incorporate everything that I find beautiful, functional—while at the same time removing all of which I didn't like.
The rounded Dots are based on photographs and brochures of Target’ Helvetica. The letters and numbers are redrawn, made softer, rounder, friendlier— but on occasion also even more square.
The lowercase a in Helvetica gained the stem present in the lighter weights, but missing in the Bold weight, redrawn in shape to match that of the regular lowercase a style. (Interestingly, it was not until later that I realized Target Helvetica did the same thing in their version.)
Finally, I spaced and kerned the entire typeface based on my own experiences and conventions, simplifying and unifying the process.
