Gotham vs Helvetica

8/10/2019 Gotham vs Helvetica

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Gotham vs Helvetica

Typography Research Project #1Design 393 A2

Bryan Kulba


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Gotham vs Helvetica

Helvetica has seen widespread use by designers for signage or advertisements for

many years. It is used more commonly than any other single typeface for these

applications. In the last year however, I have noticed a trend where advertisements and

signage have been moving from using Helvetica to the Gotham typeface, which is a

relatively new typeface created by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. The Gotham typefaces seem

to have a quality to them which Helvetica lacks. In my observation of it, I felt it appeared

more open than Helvetica. In this paper, I set out to see if I could measure this

impression I got from Gotham and also reflect on the reasons for its newfound

popularity in use. I will focus on using the uppercase letterforms of Gotham Black and

Helvetica Neue 95, which appear similar in weight.

Gotham has seen an unprecedented popularity for a new typeface which likely is, in

part, due to the liberal use of it in Barack Obama !s presidential campaign posters, printmedia and website. Gotham was developed by the company Hoefler & Frere-Jones in

2000. The inspiration comes from what the company called "vernacular type!which is

described as type which was used by engineers or draftsmen, most of whom worked

outside of the typographic tradition. As a result, the text was more in the realm of

geometric sphere than traditional typefaces. What is interesting is that this type was not

Figure 1: Three examples of Gotham in public signage and advertisements.


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a formal typeface, rather it was what seemed to develop and occur naturally among the

creators. H&FJ suggest that this is because the forms are elemental and thus the

intuitive and obvious way to build the letters, at least in the era this form of type was

used (early to mid 20th century) in metal cast signage (public buildings, etc), neon

signage, as well as hand painted lettering on vehicles.

Figure 2: Selection of some Gotham typeface weights

Helvetica was developed by Swiss Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann in 1957. The

original intent was to design a san-serif font that would be visually neutral and have no

connotations attached to it for use in signage. In the 1960-70 !s, Helvetica!s widespread

use and creation of new weights lead to inconsistency across the type family. In 1983,

Linotype released Helvetica Neue which was a unified and consistent treatment of the

original Helvetica which used a two digit scheme to define its weight and width. For

example, a medium weight and width Helvetica would hold a value of 65, while a heavy,

or black weight of normal width would be a 95.

Figure 3: Examples of Helvetica Neue weight and width numbering system


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Figure Ground

A factor in legibility in type is the relationship of the character!s figure and the

whitespace, or ground that it sits upon. If the character is too black, that is without

enough whitespace within the character!s counters, etc, the character looses legibility at

small sizes or when viewed from far away. To compare Gotham Black and Helvetica

Neue 95, I ran comparisons of the ratio of figure to ground on each letterform. I did this

by using Adobe Photoshop!s analysis tools. I created rasterized versions of all the

uppercase letters at a 55pt height and then measured the ratio of figure/ground in each

letterform for both typefaces (figure 4). The percentage of figure to ground is

consistently higher in Helvetica Neue 95 and in a t-stat test, this difference between the

two typefaces is considered to be statistically significant (see appendix).

Overlay

By overlaying uppercase letters from Helvetica Neue 95 and Gotham Black, one can

see the subtle variations is the two typefaces (figure 5). While the shared/overlapped

area (dark red) is quite substantial, one can see that Helvetica Neue 95 uses a thicker

line than the Gotham Black (blue). While Helvetica Neue 95 is slightly wider in most

cases, Gotham Black shows more whitespace in the counters and in the central area of

the letterforms, especially at the interfaces of strokes as we see in the K. With this extra

space carved out, and the slightly thinner stroke the gives the font a more open feel but

is balanced with mellower angles in diagonal strokes. What is also interesting is the

counters a generally the same height in both typefaces, however the counters in

Gotham Black are wider than Helvetica Neue 95 like in the cases of B and R as seen

below.


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Figure 4: Percentage of Figure/Ground in Letterforms

Figure 5: Overlay of Gotham Black (blue) and Helvetica Neue 95 (red).

40

46

52

58

64

70

76

82

88

94

100

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

PercentageofFiguretoGround

Helvetica Neue 95 Gotham Black


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Conclusion

Gotham Black is a lighter font than Helvetica Neue 95. Statistically, its figure/ground

relationship is significantly smaller than Helvetica Neue 95. When overlaid, it is clear

that it also uses a lighter stroke than Helvetica Neue 95. When side by side, however

the fonts appear to be of the same weight. This could be because Gotham Black uses

slightly different ratios including mellower diagonal angles and wider counters combined

with the lighter central visual weight to create the illusion it is heavier than it is. Does this

result in an increased readability which could explain Gotham Black !s recent popularity?

The increased whitespace could positively affect readability at small sizes or great

distances and the simpler, "elemental!geometric forms could also improve readability.

There is no doubt that Gotham Black is as clear and legible and suitable for signage as

Helvetica Neue 95 is. Subjectively, It is also important to consider, the popularity may be

due to Barack Obama!s generous use of the Gotham Family in his campaign. By using

this typeface in what was considered a campaign which was themed on "change!and

"hope,!the designers relied on this relatively fresh font to promote that message instead

of something like Helvetica which, although is a neutral typeface, has been the basis of

countless identities and ad campaigns. Gotham typeface signaled change because it

was distinct from Helvetica and was new to the eyes of the public. What is now ironic is

that its use in Obama!s campaign has imparted its theme of change and hope back to

the typeface, giving it connotations beyond what Hoefler & Frere-Jones would have ever

intended or predicted. With this new connotation, Gotham has been adopted by

designers in commercial uses such as ads and signage likely with the intention to give

their work that feeling of change and hope.


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Bibliography

Craig, James. Designing with Type, 5th Ed.New York: Watson-Guptill Publications,2006.

Helvetica http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica (accessed October 20, 2009).

Gotham - Barack Obama!s typography choice Cartel Agency Inc.http://blog.cartelagency.com/2008/04/03/gotham-barack-obamas-typography-choice/(accessed October 23, 2009).

The Origin of Gotham Hoefler & Frere-Jones. http://typography.com/fonts/font_history.php?historyItemID=1&productLineID=100008 (accessed October 20,2009).

Scott Thomas: Designing the Obama Campaign The 99 percent.http://the99percent.com/videos/5821/scott-thomas-designing-the-obama-campaign(accessed October 15, 2009).

Willen, Bruce and Nolen Strals. Lettering and Type. New York: Princeton ArchitecturalPress, 2009.


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Appendix (for reference only)

1. Descriptive Statistics


Mean 70.12269231 !1 Mean 64.97923077 !2

Standard Error 2.212248599 Standard Error 2.301971725

Median 70.83 Median 66.2

Standard Deviation 11.28029878 Standard Deviation 11.73779875

Sample Variance 127.2451405 Sample Variance 137.7759194

Kurtosis 0.344231093 Kurtosis 0.736044753

Skewness 0.230889204 Skewness 0.329053294

Range 50.27 Range 53.05

Minimum 47.8 Minimum 43.31

Maximum 98.07 Maximum 96.36

Sum 1823.19 Sum 1689.46

Count 26 Count 26

2. Hypothesis Test

A two-tailed hypothesis test was conducted, where: H0: $1= $2 Hi: $1%$2

Formal Decision Rule: at the 5% level of significance reject H0if |T-Stat| > t(alpha/2), n-1(n=26 and alpha=0.05). That is, if T-Stat > t(alpha/2), n-1 or if T-Stat < -t(alpha/2), n-1.

t(alpha/2), n-1 = 2.056

-t(alpha/2), n-1 = -2.056


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t-Test: Paired Two

Sample for Means


Mean 70.12269231 64.97923077

Variance 127.2451405 137.7759194

Observations 26 26

Pearson Correlation 0.980366773

Hypothesized MeanDifference

0

df 25

t Stat 11.27735222

P(T

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Gotham vs Helvetica