To any readers who are still unconvinced and in favour of the “old” Helvetica, apparently that typeface that we’ve come to know (and maybe even love) is in fact “a pale reflection of its original self”, according to Charles. Essentially, this was the original impetus for kicking off discussions four years ago by Monotype’s project originators. “Every designer now has got used to Neue Helvetica and we’ve been groomed to think of it as the legacy of Helvetica,” he says. “But if you go back and look at the typeface three of four years before 1982, it was a very different typeface.”

The project started with a history lesson. Looking at original drawings, Charles and his team assessed how Helvetica used to be “much more subtle in terms of its spacing and forms” than is algorithmically produced by Neue Helvetica (or any other form of Helvetica) when sized up. As a personal plus for Charles, the project enabled him to examine his own private collection of Helvetica drawings, too. “I’m a collector of type specimens and I have some original stuff from Haas and Haas’ parent company that I’ve always admired for its use of classic Helvetica,” he says. “But what this project has allowed me to do – and this will crack you up, or maybe even horrify you – it’s allowed me to really study the space in between the letters in those specimens, to really stare at this space and discern the magic of Helvetica’s original spacing.”