Everyone loves Helvetica, right? This iconic typeface is a go to for most designers. It’s always a starting point for new ideas. Helvetica was released onto the design world in 1957, created by Swiss typography masters Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, and it’s survived countless fads and fashions. We love Helvetica because it’s a survivor, and now it’s a swish new NFT art collection.
Of course we’ve all been hearing about non-fungible tokens for a while now, and you can read our guide to What are NFTs? for a one-stop lowdown on what this new tech is all about. What’s interesting here is that the grand old lady of design, Helvetica, is now part of this art trend, and it just feels right.
The Helvetica NFT project (opens in new tab) has been created by font foundry Monotype (its first ever digital art collection) in partnership with the James Sommerville-founded NFT art community KnownUnknown (opens in new tab) and 26 leading artists and designers.
What I love is how this NFT art collection reworks the classic Helvetica font into many different and challenging artworks while retaining what makes the font so recognisable. It’s bent, distorted, digitised, blown apart and animated but always remains visibly Helvetica.
Artists involved in the Helvetica NFT project include Pentagram (opens in new tab)’s Paula Scher and Margaret Calvert, the creator of Britain’s road signs. What I find most important about the Helvetica NFT drop is that these and other artists are committed for the long term, with new art coming later down the line. For NFT art projects to flourish they need support for the community going forward.
The joy of NFTs is you needn’t be a passive observer, they’re easy to create and you can read my guide to how to create an NFT for free, or in our broader feature on how to make and sell an NFT. Try for yourself now and launch your own collections.
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