I just made a quick comparison of Haas and Helvetica to show.

compare neue haas.pdf

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:

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.

Dezcom, do you know if the Neue Haas Unica has an alternative a avaliable, that looks like the Helvetica-a?

Kathrin, I don't know of such an alternate.  Why would they ever want to do that?

Because I am interested in it. 

And if I remember correctly, the Neue Haas Grotesk has such an alternate avaliable.

So then would you give it triple A rating?  ;-)

 

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?

 »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?

Hi, I got these folders from my excellent teacher André Gurtler in 1983. A comparison from the view of Team 77 and Haas in Münchenstein. 

 »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. :-)

For me, Neue Haas Unica fits the bill but I can only speak for myself.

Thank you very much for your opinion and advice. :)

On 9. April 2015 at 4:27 PM, Dezcom said:

I did not include Univers because it seems like apples and oranges.

Didn't Unica stand for Un[ivers-Helvet]ica?

download at MyFonts

download at MyFonts

download at MyFonts

 

Kathrin, if it still interests you: there seems to be no alternativ a in Neue Haas Unica. Here you find a pdf with all the glyphs in the paneuropean version (W1G).

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 ... ;-)

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!

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 February 9, 201610 yr by Albert-Jan Pool
Unica77 > LL Unica77

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.

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

LL Unica = (LL)Unica77 :–). I corrected my comment.