How the Star Wars Logo Got Confused With Nazi Typography

The history of the Star Wars logotype has long been controversial for its purported connection to fascist or even Nazi typography . After all , the Star Wars saga is an apparent doctrine of analogy for World War II , where the Empire is the Third Reich and Darth Vader represents Adolf Hitler .

So it would n’t be a surprise if elements of the motion picture , like its logo , were pulled from fascist informant , proper ? Not so fast .

In a terrific Hopes&Fearsfeatureon fonts and movie posters , Garbriella Garcia revisits the contestation over the Star Wars logo ’s origin . Garcia explains how George Lucas to begin with told designer Suzy Rice to produce a logo that looked “ very fascist . ” Rice ’s anamnesis of her process laterappeared in The Star Wars Poster Book , where she choose what she says she “ reckoned to be the most ‘ fascist ’ typeface I could intend of : Helvetica Black . ”

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Rice used Helvetica Black as her inspiration for the original variant of the Star Wars logo — though of course of study , she alter elements of the logotype drastically as you may see when you count at “ STAR WARS ” try in Helvetica Black without any alterations :

So why did Rice reckon Helvetica Black to be the most fascist - looking font ? manifestly she ’d been translate a book about German face design the night before Lucas inquire her to design something that would have “ an intimidating impact ” on the audience , and thought she remembered the book saying something about how Helvetica grew out of typefaces Joseph Goebbels had selected for Nazi propaganda .

“ Apparently , the book established Helvetica Black as the inevitable evolutionary Cartesian product of a typeface intent that Joseph Goebbels had grade to represent the German Nationalist party on all of its signage , ” Garcia explains .

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Over the years , Rice has been sharply criticized for implying that Helvetica is a fascistic typeface , and that it had any connection to Nazi typography . She responded to this criticism in multiple blog post clarify the issue .

“ ‘ Helvetica amount much after but was described in this Good Book I ’d been interpret as somewhat like visually to that earlier signage , ” Rice clarified .

Ricewrote in 2011 — vehemence hers :

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My original statement that Helvetica Black “ was the most fascist font I could think of ” was as to the surround FROM WHENCE THE FONT ORIGINATED , the “ general environment ” of culture and time prior to , during and directly after World War II , and , as to the rigorousness in show of the font itself . It was “ fascistic ” based upon what I ’d teach about how that typeface was developed and within what history epoch it originate — not “ a fascist typeface ” in and of itself but from a period of human , political history hold of certain severe conditions WHICH ATMOSPHERE PROVIDED ME WITH AN divine guidance FOR THE DESIGN .

As she allude to in the caps - heavy text above , it was n’t the provenance of the Helvetica typeface itself that seemed fascist to her , but rather the “ severity in visual aspect . ”In another mail service , she excuse that Helvetica was n’t barrack by Nazi typography — it was just visually similar to some of those card font :

To state the obvious — contrary to outlandish gossip as if I ’d state otherwise — Helvetica was n’t used by Goebbels nor was Miedinger , to my knowledge , associated with Goebbels . Meidinger ’s ‘ Helvetica ’ came much after but was described in this Holy Scripture I ’d been reading as somewhat similar visually to that former signage .

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Indeed , Helvetica was decades away from being designed when fascism drove Europe to war . It was designed by Zurich type designer Max Miedinger and renamed “ Helvetica , ” which is Latin for “ Swiss . ” The Haas Type Foundry , where Miedinger designed Helvetica , didn’t loose the typeface until 1957 .

And ironically enough , despite its distinctly timeless appearance , Helvetica was in reality a throwback design — a throwback to , you guessed it , a German typeface from decades before the state of war . In the former nineteenth hundred , so - call Grotesk fonts became stylish . ( Grotesk means “ sans serif ” in German . ) Berthold , the biggest character metalworks in Germany , exhaust the Aksidenz Grotesk crime syndicate in 1896 for use as a video display character .

Futura is the chief fount on the first poster that would bear Rice ’s logo . The more familiar logo to the right , as you may see , as been slightly adjust .

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It ’s wide acceptedthat Helvetica is largely ground on Aksidenz Grotesk , with small details borrowed from other German and Swiss font of that era . In fact , when you look at the two side - by - side , it ’s concentrated to tell the difference . To the left is a handy compare chart between Aksidenz Grotezk and other democratic san serif fonts , made by Wikipedian Geared Bull . This is all to say that none of these fonts are really fascistic — they’re derivative of a menstruum that dates back decades before fascism rose in Europe .

The Grotesk tradition kick off over a century ’s worth of sans serif typeface designs . These typefaces were primitively designed to seem in rubric and on signs , so there ’s an inherent vehemence on readability . That does n’t necessarily interpret into the typefaces seeming intimidating . It would even make some good sense that Goebbels used san serif typefaces on his post-horse — because these fount are contrive to appear on posters .

So no , the Star Wars logotype nor the Helvetica font that exhort it do not have actual origin despite the pervasive myth . If you want to get even deeper in the contention over the Star Wars logo and Nazism , there’san splendid and in depth web log Emily Post on the issueover at Star Wars Modern . ( The TL;DR interlingual rendition is basically that the Nazis actually favored Gothic typefaces , though some sans serif and modernist material did pop up here and there . ) If you desire to find out more about the surprisingly drawn-out history of the Star Wars logo itself , check out this Gizmodo Charles William Post all about it .

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