Throwback Thursday Font Question - Gerber Helvetica Medium

[Bobby H]

Back in the early 1990s our shop had a Gerber Signmaker IV B. For those not familiar with the Signmaker IV B, the original unit had these pretty expensive font cartridges. If I recall correctly Helvetica Medium was the default font. You had to load different cartridges to change typefaces. The machine didn't have a computer screen, just a little LCD bar not much different than the readout on a standard vinyl plotter. This machine used tractor-feed roll vinyl 15" wide. We had the unit modded so it could be driven by a computer running an MS-DOS version of CASmate.

Anyway, this Gerber version of Helvetica Medium wasn't really "medium" at all, at least not like Helvetica 65, otherwise known as Helvetica Neue Medium. Gerber's Helvetica Medium was closer to bold. I can't remember for certain if Gerber ported their cut of Helvetica over to their own sign making computer applications. We have a project to modify an old channel letter sign that was apparently designed with Gerber's Helvetica Medium.

Out of all the different versions of Helvetica (like Linotype's own Helvetica & Helvetica Neue) and various clones (Swiss 721 BT, CG Triumvirate, Nimbus Sans, etc.) which weight out of any of those families do you feel is closest to Gerber's Helvetica Medium?

 

[J Hill Designs]

the helv medium on my omega 1.56 program is almost exact to NimbusSanNovD (Bold) or Neue Helvetica BQ (Bold)

 

[Fred Weiss]

Gerber's Helvetica Medium has always been a weight that no one else has. Probably something that the old Compugraphics Corp. had in their library since they had a lot of dealings with Gerber in the early going. It was ported over to all Gerber's sign making apps such as Graphix Advantage and Omega ... So anyone with Omega could typeset your needs for you and export as EPS.

 

[Gino]

Not knowing the size of the letters or the amount of letters, it might be safer to replace all of the letters with something you know will be uniform with the end result. A non-matching letter style or maybe duplicating a letter already there, might not even match.

I would either FIND someone with the exact font and pay them for the pattern or do it over.

 

[Bobby H]

As old as the sign is, if we had to start replacing a bunch of parts (such as letter faces) we would probably suggest the old sign be replaced. The records are actually a little iffy. They just say Helvetica Medium, but it doesn't mention the type vendor (Linotype, Adobe, Gerber, etc.). I just know the letters are too bold in stroke to really be what I consider Helvetica Medium (Helvetica 65).

The connection between Compugraphics and Gerber is interesting. I do have a few weights CG Triumvirate, which was a Compugraphics clone of Helvetica. These were in a Flexi Fonts collection from 2000 and part of what carried over when Scanvec and Amiable Technologies merged at the end of the 1990s. CASmate had its own proprietary SCF fonts format. It makes me wonder how close CG Triumvirate Bold would be to Gerber's Helvetica Medium. Gerber also licensed a lot of URW fonts. Nimbus Sans figures into the mix there.

 

[gabagoo]

I think everybody should experience a 4b...at least once.

 

[GoodPeopleFlags]

I did my time with the 4B in the early 1990s. I can't imagine now how we got anything done with that thing!

 

[Fred Weiss]

As old as the sign is, if we had to start replacing a bunch of parts (such as letter faces) we would probably suggest the old sign be replaced. The records are actually a little iffy. They just say Helvetica Medium, but it doesn't mention the type vendor (Linotype, Adobe, Gerber, etc.). I just know the letters are too bold in stroke to really be what I consider Helvetica Medium (Helvetica 65).

The connection between Compugraphics and Gerber is interesting. I do have a few weights CG Triumvirate, which was a Compugraphics clone of Helvetica. These were in a Flexi Fonts collection from 2000 and part of what carried over when Scanvec and Amiable Technologies merged at the end of the 1990s. CASmate had its own proprietary SCF fonts format. It makes me wonder how close CG Triumvirate Bold would be to Gerber's Helvetica Medium. Gerber also licensed a lot of URW fonts. Nimbus Sans figures into the mix there.

The connection was that Compugraphics wanted to have their own private label vinyl cutter and Gerber needed software. Compugraphics got a vinyl cutter they named Arty and Gerber got whatever. URW was not in the picture as they were busy making Icarus font digitizing systems and being the official digitizing contractor for ITC. Compugraphics was primarily in the photo typesetting machine business and went bankrupt around 1984 or 1985.

Gerber, in the meantime, released a lot of fonts including Helvetica Medium and took a lot of liberties with both font names and design specifics. They were probably working from film strips which may or may not have been supplied by Compugraphics. Gerber was later sued by Letraset for copyright infringement. Interestingly enough, Letraset was also their exclusive distributor for the Gerber line in both Australia and Japan.

When the U.S. Patent Court ruled in 1989 that one cannot copyright a typeface design because one cannot copyright the western alphabet, they allowed that one can claim a trademark on a typeface name. The result was a bunch of lawsuits and type manufacturers going bankrupt or being acquired. Letraset, ITC and Monotype were acquired. URW and Berthold went bankrupt. Gerber was more recently bought out by an investment group. And Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank) made a billion dollars selling renamed, pirated fonts on CD under the brand name of KeyFonts Pro.

None of which makes much difference at this point and your best solution, IMHO and as suggested earlier, would be to get typesetting from anyone with a copy of Omega.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I did my time with the 4B in the early 1990s. I can't imagine now how we got anything done with that thing!

At one point when my company was a wholesale letter service, we had three Signmakers ( a 4, a 4A and a 4B) and three operators. We regularly produced over 5,000 letters a day. When we upgraded to faster equipment, what we found was that our workflow changed but our production increase was miniscule. Where our operators would weed, mask and trim out while the next job was cutting ... we now had more times when the plotters weren't running because the weeding was being done instead to keep up. Production only increased when we added helpers to do the weeding which canceled out the profits gained from the faster cutting.

The old Signmakers and Sprints did have a much higher cut quality than most newer plotters deliver.

 

[gabagoo]

I remember when I used to outsource some cutting to a company that had 3 or 4 gerbers and tons of fonts... My mouth was watering when I saw that Super Sprint and how fast it cut. The 4b, as great an invention that it was took forever to do something like a zoning sign. Still faster than hand lettering...and when the Job save came out...was the best $$$ spent for saving files from the $13,000 digitizing tablet!!!