But just like clothing styles, typefaces cycle in and out of fashion. In recent years, Helvetica has been taken up by a new generation of designers, foremost among them an ultrahip Dutch firm, Experimental Jetset. For these young designers, Helvetica is part of an egalitarian modernist tradition. "Having grown up in the Netherlands, we see late modernism not as a corporate aesthetic, but as something much more authentic," explains Danny van den Dungen, one of the firm's principals. "Late modernism is the folk art of the Netherlands, something very much linked with our roots."

This T-shirt, which the firm designed in 2001, is part of a series intended to distill the archetype of the rock-band T-shirt to its essential elements: no picture, just a simple list of the band members' names. Helvetica gives the words a neutral, generic look, like a supermarket-brand box of cornflakes. Other shirts in the series include "Keith & Mick & Bill & Charlie & Brian" and "Joey & Dee Dee & Johnny & Tommy."