PHILOSOPHIES OF FORM

Nearly all digital typefaces today are implemented as contours, but Lucida Grande, with its Renaissance handwriting origins, looks more like the trace of a moving pen, whereas Helvetica, with its 19th century constructive origins, looks more like the shadow of a modern sculpture.

These aesthetic distinctions are not only historical; they can also be poetic. Hans Ed. Meier, the Swiss lettering artist and type designer who created Syntax, one of the most beautiful and influential “humanist sans-serifs” of the 20th century, enjoyed quoting a poet friend’s comparison of Syntax to Helvetica:

"Reading a page in Syntax is like walking through a field of flowers.

Reading a page in Helvetica is like walking through a field of stones.”

Meier’s concept of a humanist Sans-serif and its realization in Syntax is explained by a German type scholar and expert, Erich Schulz-Anker, in “Syntax-Antiqua, a Sans Serif on a New Basis”, in Novum Gebrauchsgraphik 7/1970 (also in French and German). An earlier version published in 1969 by the D. Stempel Foundry, in German only, is “Formanalyse und Dokumentation einer serifenlosen Linearschrift auf neuer Basis: Syntax-Antiqua”.

Schulz-Anker’s arguments in favor of the greater legibility of the humanist sans-serif, exemplified by Syntax, are based on historical evidence and formal analysis. He reasons that the humanist letter forms of Syntax have greater “clarity, distinctness, and … distinguishability” and thus provide greater legibility than the “static” form assimilation of Helvetica (which he calls a “conventional” sans-serif).

(Schulz-Anker’s Syntax essays do not appear to be available on the web, but examples of selected illustrations can be found by web searches.)

EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE

In addition to scholarly typographical theory, typo-ideological beliefs, poetry, and unfettered fervent opinion in favor of the humanist sans-serif, there has also been some scientific corroboration of the superior legibility of humanist sans-serif forms compared to a grotesque sans-serif, in particular contexts.

Bryan Reimer and co-authors at MIT and Monotype Corporation compared a humanist sans-serif to a “square grotesque” in automotive displays, and found some legibility advantages for the humanist sans-serif. This study concentrated on automotive displays and compared only two typefaces, neither being Lucida Grande or Helvetica Neue, so additional studies will be needed before the results can be generalized. Nevertheless, the study does suggest possible legibility advantages for humanist sans-serifs compared to grotesques.

[Reference: Bryan Reimer et al. (2014) “Assessing the impact of typeface design in a text-rich automotive user interface”, Ergonomics, 57:11, 1643-1658.]

ITALICS & OBLIQUES

Lucida Grande offers two different forms of slanted companion faces for the roman, italic and oblique.

Helvetica Neue Italic has the same x-height, stem weight, and nearly the identical width as the roman. Overall, Helvetica Neue Italic takes up less space in text than Lucida Grande Italic or Lucida Grande Oblique

Helvetica Neue Italic is an oblique version of the roman, following the traditional form of “italics” for the “grotesque” style. Helvetica Neue Italic is slanted at approximately 12 degrees but it is not simply an electronic slant. The letter shapes have been subtly adjusted to correct slight weighting imbalances that occur when romans are simply slanted. The differences can be seen in letters like ‘k’ and ‘o’, for example.

The advantages of sloped roman as a proper italic companion were promoted by type expert Stanley Morison in an essay “Towards an Ideal Italic” in The Fleuron V, pags 93-129, 1926. Despite Morison’s clever argument, most designers of seriffed types, including Morison himself when designing Times New Roman, continued to make true cursive italics. Most sans-serif types, however, including the grotesque styles from which Helvetica was derived, used sloped or slanted romans, also called obliques. Eric Gill’s Gill Sans, is an exception, with a cursive italic, and Hans Ed. Meier’s Syntax likewise, although Syntax ‘a’ and ‘g’ are more like slanted versions of roman.

Like the roman, Lucida Grande Italic has slightly narrow letter forms but slightly wide spacing. In text it occupies about the same amount of horizontal space as the roman. Although nearly the same average width, its cursive stroke pattern immediately distinguishes it from the roman and gives it more dynamic action.

Lucida Grande Italic is a true, cursive italic based on fast handwriting by humanist scholars of the 15th century. It is closely related to Italian chancery cursive styles of the 16th century, and italic handwriting taught in calligraphy courses and some primary schools today. However, like sans-serif Lucida Grande roman, Lucida Grande Italic has been simplified and stripped of calligraphic details. Its basic shapes are cursive, and it is slanted to approximately 11.3 degrees, which gives a rise-to-run ration of 5:1.

Most differences between Lucida Grande Roman and Helvetica Neue (weight, thick-thin contrast, letter width groupings, apertures, arch cuts, etc.) also apply to the differences between the italics. Neither italic nor oblique styles have vertical bilateral symmetry because they are slanted, but if Helvetica Neue Italic were uprighted, it would be essentially roman, with bilateral symmetry, whereas Lucida Grande Italic uprighted would still be a cursive, asymmetric design, but with vertical stems. Some humanist cursives were nearly vertical, because slant is not necessarily a feature of cursive.

BOLD WEIGHTS

The differences discussed for the regular weights of Lucida Grande and Helvetica Neue mostly apply also to comparisons of the bold weights, except of course, for the matter of weight. How different are the weights?

Here, we use two different measures of weight. One, as described above, is the numerical ratio between x-height and vertical stem thickness. How many stem thicknesses equal the x-height? This is fairly easy and moderately accurate measure for typefaces of normal widths and proportions.

Lucida Grande Bold (pre-Retina) has an x-height/stem ratio of 3.7:1 . That is, the x-height is 3.7 times the vertical stem width.

Helvetica Neue Bold has an x-height/stem ratio of 3.64:1. That is, the x-height is 3.64 times the vertical stem width.

In comparison, this means that the Bold weights appear to be very similar, but there are a few noteworthy differences.

Lucida Grande Bold (Retina version). In 2013, Apple released a slightly darker version of Lucida Grande Bold for Retina displays. B&H increased the Bold weight by roughly 4%, to better distinguish Bold from regular weight on the high-resolution Retina displays. This increase was roughly one JND (Just Noticeable Difference) or slightly more, and darkened Lucida Grande Bold to a ratio of 3.56:1, which is slightly darker than the Helvetica Neue Bold ratio. However, en masse, Helvetica Neue Bold is still a bit darker than the Retina version of Lucida Grande Bold. The main reason is that the Helvetica Neuw Bold letters are packed more tightly, thus reducing white area by increasing black area within a defined text space. To measure that numerically, we need to find the average tonal value, not just stem weights.

The gray tone of a typeface in text, as described above for the weights of Lucida Grande regular and Helvetica Neue regular, is an average of the total number of black pixels in a defined area (the rest of the pixels being white in typical displays). For lower-case letters, which dominate most texts, tonal weight of of (non-Retina) Lucida Grande Bold is approximately 29% gray tone. The tonal weight of the Retina version is 30%, not a big change, Just a barely noticeable increase.

Helvetica Neue Bold, with its tighter fitting, has a darker average tonal value, approximately a 32% gray tone. This is noticeably more than one JND.

Note that the differences in tonal values between regular and bold weights are less than the differences expressed in x-height/stem ratios. This discrepancy is because the white areas above the x-height and below the baseline do not change much as stem weight increases (although some bold weights, as in Lucida, raise x-heights slightly with increasing weight). When the overall gray tone of a typeface is averaged, the nearly unchanging white areas reduce the effect of additional stem weight.

More important than precise measure of x-height/stem ratio or gray tone value is the visual/psychological function of typeface weight, which is to graphically mark a difference between two forms of characters in order to signify a semantic distinction or expressive nuance.

Using both measures, Lucida Grande’s Bold weight is approximately 1.5 times as bold in terms of x-height/stem ratio, and approximately 1.32 times as bold in tonal value. In comparison, Helvetica Neue Bold is 1.67 times as bold in terms of x-height/stem ratio and 1.39 times as dark in tonal value.

Thus, by both measures of relative boldness - bold weight compared to regular weight - Helvetica Neue Bold is a bolder bold relative to its regular weight than is Lucida Grande Bold relative to its regular weight. This makes Helvetica Neue Bold it stand out more in isolated contexts. Where bold weight occurs in text alongside normal weight, the more restrained Lucida Grande Bold tends to be less obtrusive.

The decision of how bold a bold should be - whether more or less emphatic, more or less obtrusive - depends on context, intention, and the discrimination or visual taste of the typographer. We have discussed these matters separately under the titles of “Visual and Semantic Functions of Typeface Weight” and “How much bolder should a “bold” be to be bold?”.

When a more emphatic distinction is desired, a bolder bold can chosen. When a less obtrusive distinction is desired, a less bolder bold can be chosen. Traditional typeface families seldom provide subtle nuances of boldness, so typographers and user interface designers have limited means to adjust bolds.

Some typeface families provide intermediate weights between normal and bold, sometimes designated “medium”, as well as weights bolder than bold, sometimes designated Extra Bold, Heavy, or Black. We discuss the problems with these somewhat vague descriptive names in “Lucida Basic Font Weights”, where we combine verbal with numerical designations to more closely denote the gradations of weight is a typeface suite.

The Lucida Grande family includes a Black weight in addition to Bold, although in the event of the first release of OS X the Black weight was not included. In stem ratio, Lucida Grande Black is twice the weight of the regular Lucida Grande face. In gray tone, it is 35.3%, or 1.6 times bolder than the regular weight.

The Helvetica Neue family includes a “Heavy” weight that in stem ratio is also twice the weight of regular Helvetica Neue. Its gray tone is 35.7%, or 1.55 times bolder than the regular weight. Because of its slightly larger x-height and slightly narrower width, Lucida Grande Black looks slightly darker than Helvetica Neue Heavy, but in stem weights and gray tones, Lucida Grande Black and Helvetica Neue Heavy are very close in terms of their relative weights compared to their regular weights.

Lucida Grande Light, Regular, Bold and Black

Helvetica Neue Light, Regular, Bold and Heavy

Typographers sometimes desire more and finer gradations of weight. B&H provided this in the Retina screen adaptation of Lucida Grande Bold for Apple, and have also developed additional gradations in the Lucida Sans family, which is essentially identical to Lucida Grande, except for character sets and minor tweaks.

An aspect of the Lucida Sans family, not found in Helvetica Neue, is a series of fine gradations in the “normal” weight range, between 300 Light and 500 Dark. These fine gradations are for tuning a basic text weight to different screen display characteristics.

Lucida Sans 350 Book, 375 Text, 400 Normal, 425 Thick, 450 ExtraThick

In the Helvetica Neue OS X system family, there are UltraLight, Thin, Light, and Medium weights. The Lucida Grande family does not currently include weights comparable to the lighter Helvetica Neue weights and the Medium weight.

However, weights nearly equivalent to those of Helvetica Neue are found in the Lucida Sans family distributed directly by Bigelow & Holmes. The weight spectra of the different families were developed independently with different concepts of weight progression and gradation, so they do not match exactly, but there is fairly close agreement on most weights.