Every time someone says: ‹We need the next Helvetica›, I respond: ‹What’s the next Helvetica? What is going to capture people’s spirit?› You’re making typefaces that other people have to work with so, unless it’s a custom job where you know exactly what the context is going to be and what demands are going to be placed on the typeface, you have to make an educated guess as to what the typeface needs to do and how it’s going to do it.

You have to prepare a typeface so that people who are not great typographers get a good result out of pouring it into a layout, dropping it in a headline. So you have to work out what is the best internal rhythm, what are the right proportions, what’s in tune with the shape of the letters and the overall family.

It’s intuition, not sales figures, that will probably tell you what’s going to be successful. Often, by the time someone tells you to go out and see what kinds of typefaces people are using, it’s too late for you to do a typeface like that. You have to take a longer view.

Dan Rhatigan.