Alternate Helvetica /a?

Evie S.

Lately, I've been documenting the typography of Chicago's public transportation, namely the CTA ‘L’. I'm used to a certain amount of variability, but I've noticed this bizarre variation on Helvetica's /a that omits the signature curve on the upper bowl.

The only solid date I can provide is that the “Priority Seating” sticker is likely original from 1992-1994—when the train (3200 series, train #3264) was built. Was this a common modification?

Also, it really appears to me that the sticker and “These facilities for passengers only…” are just part of the font, while the “Rapid Transit” appears custom-made (note the differences between the two appearances of /a).

Craig Eliason

Looks like the /a in Unica.

Thomas Phinney

It doesn’t look like Helvetica to me. I don’t think it is Unica either.

Look at how the terminals on a, e, s and g are all slightly off a straight vertical/horizontal cut. Also the slope on the mid-stroke of the “a”…

The “a” is reminiscent of Unica, but those off-90° angles are not. (From what I can find of original Unica samples online. They are not as common as one would like.)

Edit: clarified that I was thinking of 90° angles, vertical or horizontal.

Nick Shinn

Some kind of “Standard.”
There were many typositor neo-grotesques, and Chicago was Graphic City (Oz Cooper’s stomping ground), and home of VGC for instance.
So I would connect the dots and assume the font is a local product, if not Akzidenz Grotesk.

Evie S.

As I understand it, the perfect terminals on Helvetica are from the digital era. Here is a couple examples I could find of a similar specimen from Letterform Archive, one with obvious non-horizontal terminals (/e in general, /s in Geist), and one annotated (rather annoyingly, sorry!)

Here's another sign I found today. The numerals scream Helvetica to me, especially with the underbite of /9:

And (to me) a gorgeous example of pre-digital Helvetica, again with a slightly diagonal terminal in the /e:

Peter Bain

Depending on the method, hand-cut sign vinyl following a template was/is around at fabricators. As far as the “a” and associated typeface, the Chicago area was home to pre-PostScript era font publishers (of varying reputation) since Ludlow as Nick Shinn pointed out. It seems like a case of near-vetica.

Peter Bain

BBS had been gone a long time when those signs were produced.

Peter Bain

Separately, I've found an American foundry specimen for Helvetica Medium that shows some angled terminals, in the the "e" and "s". And in some sizes the cap I and lowercase l look nearly identical. Lastly, to reply to the OP's comment about consistent horizontal endings, they show up in Mergenthaler VIP samples, so pre-date digital versions. 

Nick Shinn

If you can’t identify it as being a particular font named “Helvetica,” it should not be called Helvetica; it is an unidentified neo-grotesque.

Over the years, many foundries have published neo-grotesques that are me-too Helveticas,—Apple’s San Francisco, for instance.

Why, I even had a go at the genre myself!

Thomas Phinney

https://fontsinuse.com/uses/3220/it-s-the-real-thing-coca-cola-ads-1969-74
https://fontsinuse.com/uses/6655/stevie-wonder-music-of-my-mind-album-art

All examples of early Helvetica, pre-digital, with either perfectly horizontal cuts, or very close. Certainly nothing like that crazy 9 shown above for the Chicago Transit Authority. I would believe that some of those could maybe be Helvetica, and that the terminals in e and g might not have quite perfectly horizontal cuts in pre-digital Helvetica. But at the same time, some of Evie’s examples seem way off.

Here for example is a catalog example showing the New York City Transit Authority’s Graphic Standards Manual for 1970, and the typeface is “Standard Medium”: https://www.pixartprinting.it/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Graphic-Standards-Manual.jpg and the relevant page of Fonts In Use that explains how this is another name for Akzidenz Grotesk.  https://standardsmanual.com/pages/type-specimen ; https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/217963/nycta-standard

This does indeed match Evie’s sample from NYC, I think?

(For extra confusion, Berthold also has a Helvetica-ish typeface called Standard, which is closer to Helvetica. Not sure what it’s relationship to the NYCTA Standard typeface is, just offhand.)

Dan Reynolds

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