h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have this weird typeface fetish.

Designer Massimo Vignelli said a designer should only use these 5 typefaces: Bodoni, Helvetica, Times Roman, Century and Futura.

I'd add another two to the list: Franklin Gothic and OCRB, the former because it is very well-designed and legible, and its serif font like forms make it a good crossover sans-serif font, and the latter because in modern design situations a monospaced font is often called for, and OCRB is the best, if you ask me.

However, Helvetica is a strange and beautiful beast. Its strangeness is partly that we use it everywhere, on everything, and never see just how lovely it is.

I just bought the entire set of Helveticas (thin, normal, bold, condensed and extended, and one outline version!) from Linotype -- a present from me to me as I left my last job with a lot more money from redundancy than I'd believed would ever pass through my fingers as a single chunk -- and I will never regret this. Designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger, followed shortly by Univers by Adrian Frutiger in 1958, it has become probably the standard sans-serif typeface, if such a thing exists. It is everywhere.

Don't ask me why, but sometimes as I write instant messages, the letters forming on screen, I suddenly do something -- like type "juice" -- which reminds me how wonderful it is. The austere descender on the j, almost a right angle bend without curve, and the almost perfect ellipse of the c or e, with the perfect proportion of the u ... I sit there and gasp. How can something so beautiful be used so casually every single day by millions without their even noticing? (Well, actually, if you're a Windows user you're probably stuck with Arial, which is a bit leaden. But you know what I mean.)

Before you think I'm an absurd trainspotter (I know ... too late) I am not advocating we all go around collecting typefaces and gasping at lettering, but perhaps something worth taking away is that many common objects we use every day and take for granted are elegantly and usefully designed, and that this is something to enjoy for its own sake.

As is the word juice.

Now if you'll axcuse me, I have a date at the water cooler.