Switzer, Söhne, and the new wave of Swiss-inspired type

A new generation of typefaces is reimagining the Swiss grotesque for contemporary design. Here's what makes them different — and why they matter.

The Swiss grotesque has had more comebacks than any other typographic style in history. Helvetica defined the 1960s. Its influence shaped corporate identity for three decades. Then it became a cliché — the default choice of designers who wanted to look serious without thinking too hard about it.

What's happening now is different. A new wave of type designers are going back to the source — the hand-drawn grotesques of the early twentieth century, the work of Berthold and Haas, the optical corrections that made those faces feel both precise and warm — and rebuilding them with contemporary sensibility and modern technical capability.

What makes Switzer different

Switzer isn't trying to be Helvetica. That's the first thing to understand about it. Where Helvetica is closed and neutral — deliberately withholding personality — Switzer has warmth. The terminals are slightly more open. The proportions are slightly more generous. The optical adjustments are slightly less mechanical.

The result is a typeface that carries the authority of the Swiss grotesque tradition without the coldness that makes Helvetica feel corporate. It works at display sizes because it has enough character to hold attention. It works at body sizes because it has enough neutrality to get out of the way.

Why this matters for identity design

The choice of typeface is the single most important brand decision most people never think about. Clients will spend weeks debating a logo mark and approve a typeface in thirty seconds. But the typeface is on everything — every email, every document, every piece of communication the brand ever produces. The logo is on the letterhead. The type is the letterhead.

Choosing a typeface from this new Swiss wave signals something specific — that you understand typographic history, that you're making a considered decision rather than defaulting to the familiar, and that you value the kind of quiet confidence that comes from getting the fundamentals exactly right.