The premise of this book was to examine the history of the typeface Helvetica and the men who designed it. As the book focussed on Helvetica, the style of the book reflects the Swiss Style that was popular during the time Helvetica was designed. The cover of the book plays off of this as well, with the color scheme of white and red reflecting the country that Helvetica originates from and owes it's namesake to, Switzerland.
As this book pulls from the Swiss Style, the layout is very open and clean. Everything is also locked to a rigid grid in order to solidify the elements in space. This white space allows for elements to better examined by themselves such as the specimens of Helvetica in the corner and the groupings of body type with photos.
Even though Helvetica is used in most of the book, it isn't the only typeface used. Baskerville is used for the body copy as the X-height of Helvetica isn't quite as conducive to large paragraphs like some of the thinner serif typefaces. When typeset with strictly Helvetica, the entire dynamic changes and how weight is distributed among the layout becomes quite awkward. Despite this, Helvetica still plays a large role in the book both figuratively and literally.
