The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
GT America vs Helvetica
Two commercial grotesques from Switzerland, sixty years apart. Helvetica is the 1957 neo-grotesque from the Haas foundry that became the default sans-serif of the twentieth century, while GT America is Grilli Type's 2016 answer, built to bridge nineteenth-century American Gothics and twentieth-century European neo-grotesques.
GT America is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Libre Franklin, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to GT America → Helvetica is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Inter, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Helvetica →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- Helvetica was drawn by Max Miedinger under Eduard Hoffmann in 1956–57 as Neue Haas Grotesk, a tightening of Akzidenz-Grotesk; GT America was designed by Noël Leu with Seb McLauchlan and borrows the squarer, more open shapes of American Gothics.
- Helvetica's narrow apertures and near-identical capital I and lowercase l weaken it at small sizes and on screens, whereas GT America's more open forms were drawn with web and mobile use in mind.
- GT America ships as one coherent family of 84 styles across six widths, from Compressed to Expanded plus a Mono, with Cyrillic, Greek, and Vietnamese support; Helvetica's width and weight range depends on which cut you license, with Neue Helvetica (1983) offering nine weights and four widths.
- Both are paid fonts: Helvetica is licensed through Monotype, and GT America through Grilli Type, so licensing cost is a factor either way and neither side is free.
GT America
Reach for GT America when you want a Helvetica-like neutrality with a warmer, more American voice and a full width system for editorial and branding work, and you can budget for the Grilli Type license.
Helvetica
Reach for Helvetica when you need the canonical Swiss grotesque for signage, logos, and print, and you can accept its weaker small-size and screen performance along with the Monotype license fee.