I recently watched a documentary on Helvetica (titled, unsurprisingly, “Helvetica”), which gave some interesting insights into how this typeface changed much of the 20th-century landscape. Is Helvetica still considered a popular typeface among designers today?
Well, as the documentary is almost ten years old, I’d say things have probably evolved from them. Helv and its variants are still widely used, but I don’t consider it trendy. Classic, maybe, used when a certain comforting simplicity is wanted. I use Helv Condensed more than any other variant, but not often. Don’t see it too often, either, but it’s there.
I’m no typographer but I am interested in it and from what I can tell it’s not very well liked by typographers. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it’s over used and often means the designer didn’t put much effort into the font. Helvetica is often the default font in many programs.
This blog post might give you some insight
Oh, yes. Apple gave Helvetica Neue quite a boost in one of the recent iOS releases, and a lot of websites began to use it around the same time. So many that there was a bit of a backlash about overuse, particularly of the thinnest weights.
The universe of type specifiers is now exponentially larger than when I began my graphic design career 40 years ago. Every lost-kitten poster, every website, every condo board meeting notice now involves choosing a typeface. Among professionals, I’d say there’s a weariness with its prosaic overuse by people who don’t think deeply about design—but at the same time, there’s a new appreciation of how it can be utterly sublime when used properly.