You meet him at the Basle airport. The conversation is pleasant but predictable, always returning to universal themes: form, function, the price of cotton. You know he would submit to you completely, burying his personality in your own caprice.

Then, a large, avuncular man from another century exits the restroom.

Do you follow him, or stay with your stalwart companion?

Helvetica, designed by Max Miedinger in Switzerland, 1957, is a neutral typeface with some notable soft spots: the curved ankle of the R and the teardrop bowl of the a.