Univers + Helvetica ≠ Unica

This historical account of the Unica typeface, legendary pinnacle of “Swiss Style” design, examines the complex interplay of design authorship, technological development and economic conditions at the dawn of the digital era. Commissioned by the inventors of Helvetica, the Swiss Haas foundry, Unica was originally designed in the mid-1970s by Team’77 (André Gürtler, Christian Mengelt, Erich Gschwind) by synthesizing the ground-breaking sans serifs of the postwar era, Helvetica and Univers. Although hailed as a milestone by industry experts, the new typeface became a commercial failure upon its release in the early 1980s and disappeared amid the sweeping digital media transformations that followed. More than twenty-five years later, a new generation of Swiss designers rediscovered the relevance of Unica, which paved the way for Lineto’s digital re-issue in 2015, developed in close collaboration with the typeface’s original authors. The substantial book offers a detailed reconstruction of Unica’s rise, fall and resurrection. Gathering a wealth of unpublished information from a wide variety of sources, the lavishly produced volume also documents the typeface in detail.