A typeface for world-builders and futurists—The Northern Block’s Heltar strikes a balance between homage and innovation.
Heltar is an eponym derived from the ‘Hel’ in ‘Helvetica’, connecting us instantly to The Northern Block’s intent to honour the contribution that Helvetica has made to design, while also signalling a departure and evolution from it.
There’s an elephant on the page, though, isn’t there? And the message slapped across its back, is that there are already too many Helvetica replicas out there. The good news is—too many Helvetica replicas—sat at the forefront of thinking at the conception of this project. It formed a healthy jumping-off point when Type Designer, Jonathan Hill, begun the journey to design a typeface that is intended to celebrate the excellence of Helvetica, while being something else entirely. It ensured that The Northern Block have delivered a distinct typeface worthy of energy, attention and application. So wash that Elephant down, and set it free to roam.
Heltar isn’t just about the past; it’s also about the future. The name ‘Heltar’ itself, has a pang of the futuristic. It could be the name of an extra-terrestrial alloy found beneath the surface of Venus, or an engineered component on a space shuttle. It aligns with the typeface’s aim to blend historic and enduring design excellence, with modern, future-ready aesthetics. It’s one for right now, and for the interfaces of tomorrow. This is a typeface that has been designed in response to the challenge—
How do we make Grotesque work differently?
To attempt an answer, Jonathan had to start again from ground zero. It can be difficult to re-visit the past. Even more so when you are prepared to redraw it from scratch. It took Jonathan around nine weeks to deliver on that commitment, and bring this typeface to life.
He began by building each letterform with the aim of harnessing the same intent and elemental correctness that made Helvetica a piece of design history, while also being guided by the need to make a typeface that is fit for the future.
Jonathan looked at the trend towards contradiction and inner spaces, and a conflict with outer lines. He tackled that difficulty in building more whitespace, without losing too much black space.
“There’s a truism that sticks when developing a typeface like this—if you are going to push boundaries, they need to be pushed in the right places.” Jonathan Hill, Type Designer
Distinct features can too easily look like errors. Jonathan has been selective on where to make inroads. The letterforms have been crafted meticulously to achieve optical precision and subtle corrections that ensure readability and rhythm, even under close tracking. This attention to detail results in a typeface that feels both familiar and refreshingly new.
What has this approach, this design project, this typeface given us?
Heltar has been assembled with the machine-level intensity and attention to detail that can be increasingly found across the body of work at The Northern Block. Jonathan’s nine-week expedition has delivered an opportunity to evolve the thinking behind grotesque fonts, delivering a typeface to new parameters, making it fit for new technologies and new ways of interaction. Classic design sensibilities, redrawn from scratch to deliver a future-fit answer to Helvetica.
For a typeface that offers such a great opportunity at subtle unification, it’s also really flexible. When you move through the grades of Heltar, you can deliver entirely different impacts.
At the thinner grades of the spectrum, Heltar could feel at home in product, tech and truly legible long-form passages across digital and print. It radiates intelligence and authority, but balances it with elegance and class. It’s Dame Judi Dench’s portrayal of ‘M’, in James Bond, annunciating every message perfectly, the only thing in the room cooler than 007.
The extremity of the typeface’s components, amplify the extremity of anything from technology and pioneering mechanics, to the human experience, or art that stretches the mind a little bit further. As you move up the grades, we’re into an aesthetic territory that can deliver dramatic moments, and really ramp up the ante. With Heltar Black, the characteristics really come alive and absorb your attention. Its messages can feel almost sentient. You can be comfortably drawn in, but you wouldn’t want to mess with it.
We know a typeface is a tool, but if it were a piece of technology, it would look and behave like Heltar. Traditionally, ink-traps were used to improve legibility on coarse paper by preventing ink spread. In Heltar, they are reimagined as stylistic elements that give the typeface its deft, mechanistic quality, making it stand out as a typeface designed to ignite the imagination of the futurists.
Drawing inspiration from The Designers Republic’s treatment of Helvetica and the improvements of Hass Unica, the typeface strikes a balance between homage and innovation, and it will allow customers to do the same. Heltar is a modern neo-grotesque typeface born from the legacy of Helvetica, and refined for the digital age.
Helvetica and similar typefaces have always appealed to the people and organisations who shape how we live, travel and communicate. They themselves often do so with very geometric levels of detail, where that precision-engineered thinking speaks of the future and innovation. But how does a brand, service, or customer move forward, adapt, evolve, and still stay aesthetically true to itself?
Heltar can deliver the harmony needed to do this well, with nuances that can celebrate a legacy, while offering a clean corporate point of difference. New technologies or points of view. New advances, a daring direction, or a niche product. For any brand entrenched in history, but pushing a boundary of its own or exploring a new avenue, Heltar could be the mothership.
Everyone talks about being at the cutting edge, but no one can really take you to there, because by its very nature, the horizon-line of the cutting edge is always on the march. With Heltar, The Northern Block have released a future-driven typeface for a future-focused customer. It is ink for innovators, enabling world-builders to shape their message into their own words, and communicate with distinction from that ever-advancing frontier.
Disclaimer: Any brands, products, or third-party names mentioned in this publication, or used for illustrative purposes in any supporting marketing materials, remain the trademarks or property of their respective owners.