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Neue Haas Unica comparison

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Posted

Thanks for the PDF. Would be interesting to put Univers next to it as well. 

Personally, I don’t mind these new versions of the 20th century classics, because choice is never bad. But as a designer, who started out in this century, overused fonts like Helvetica or Univers just never get on my shortlist. And fonts that look similar Helvetica or Univers are equally unappealing. I don’t even care much about the details of the design or the introductory offer. There are always hundreds of other fonts much more interesting to use. 

But I guess it works anyway:

Screen_Shot_2015-04-09_at_07.35.24.thumb

Screen Shot 2015-04-09 at 07.35.24.png

  • Like 1
Posted

As an old 20th century guy, I always preferred Univers.  It actually made sense as a family and text read better in it. I did not include Univers because it seems like apples and oranges.  The others grew out of the base mold.

Posted

No. :)

But – the members of Typografie.info can tell you long stories about it – I’ve been searching for ages to find an appealing OTF font package to replace my old Neue Helvetica PS package. I have a need for a replacement, because I have to use Helvetica – or something very similar looking – on a few job projects, where the limits in choosing fonts have been set very tight by the client.

I definitely don’t want to spent another fortune in Neue Helvetica OTF (the PS package long time ago was expensive enough and yes – at the end of day the OTF version is still what it is – Neue Helvetica) but would like to find a better alternative. »Better« is actually not that easy to define. A bit more exiting maybe, a bit more modern … a bit more of something that makes me exited to spend a lot of money for it. Unrealistic? I don’t know – I am still searching …

What available font would – in your opinion – be the very best Neue Helvetica replacement?

Posted

 »Better« is actually not that easy to define. A bit more exiting maybe,

The eye of the beholder, there is the rub.

You cannot make Helvetica, to you, that which it is not.  If your client insists on it, then you must use it, unless you can convince them otherwise?

Posted

 »Better« is actually not that easy to define. A bit more exiting maybe,

The eye of the beholder, there is the rub.

You cannot make Helvetica, to you, that which it is not.  If your client insists on it, then you must use it, unless you can convince them otherwise?

​There are different clients of mine: The one group insist on using Neue Helvetica, in these cases I use my old PS-fonts. Other clients want something close but not Neue Helvetica – for those I am looking for something close - but better. :-)

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
Posted

Thomas, thank you very much! In the meantime I already bought the Neue Haas Unica anyway, because I am sure it will come in useful somehow sometime. Even if it doesn’t bring a Helvetica-like lower case a ... ;-)

  • 6 months later...
Posted

I am late to the thread, but would mention Unica77, which is revived by the original Team ’77. New weights appear to be in the works, and there is a stylistic set with round instead of square punctuation and dots. They have also provided alternate kerning pairs for all caps and a contextual multiplication glyph!

Posted (edited)

Thanks Mark, for pointing at LL Unica77 in this thread! One of the interesting differences between LL Unica77 and Neue Haas Unica is that Lineto, the Swiss type foundry that revived Unica together with Team ’77, actually pays a license fee to Team 77, whereas Monotype does not. Team ’77 originally consisted of the three Swiss designers André Gürtler, Christian Mengelt and Erich Gschwind. LL Unica77 was revived by Christian Mengelt and Maurice Göldner.

Edited by Albert-Jan Pool
Unica77 > LL Unica77
  • Like 2
Posted

Very good point, and the primary reason I am looking at this cut. That and they also have a more reasonable EULA for those who can’t operate in the PDF workflow. The fracs seem a little tight on my pdf prints. I think I could GREP my way out of that though.

Guest Jacques Le Bailly
Posted

Don't forget Lineto's version of Unica, LL Unica. They designed it together with the original designers.

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