RIP

(kerning, from XKCD)

What was it?

Smelvetica was a craftily edited version of the infamously robust Helvetica. The kerning has been specially altered, to be ... well, bad, terrible, awful and painful.

What happened to it?

Dear Tim,

nice to see that we have so much in common. We also create fonts to ensure that our customer’s brands and messages will always be eye-catching and unique. Many people play a role in making sure we can always meet this standard. Distributing licenses for our products (i.e. Helvetica, the grande dame of fonts) is one way we can ensure that all these people make a living.

With this in mind – and because we know you are striving for a more civilized time – we ask that you stop promoting ‘Smelvetica’ and making the font software available to everybody. Next time, just let us know if you have more ideas on how to modernize our classics, we are always open for creative input.

Hey Jennifer,

Just to confirm, you do see that Smelvetica is a parody and is the opposite of a useful, a modernization or eye-catching?

Hello Tim,

We are fully aware that you meant for this to be a prank.

Nonetheless, there is a trademark and copyright issue at hand here and we have to make sure that Monotype’s intellectual property isn’t weakened. Therefore, we ask you once more that you rename your typeface and refrain from further distribution of the font software in question. We expect that this will be possible within the next few days.