Post Mortem
May 09, 2008
I’m over 20 years late to comment on this, but I found it to be quite fascinating: Erik Spiekermann’s Post Mortem (PDF) article from Baseline Magazine (issue #7, 1985). There was a commission to develop a new corporate design program for the West German Post Office (Deutsche Bundespost). Spiekermann writes about design choices behind the new typeface, which, in the end, everyone loved — except for the Deutsche Bundespost administration for fear of ‘causing unrest’. So, they defaulted to stay with Helvetica. Boring!