Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

Franklin Gothic and News Gothic, preferring it over Futura, then
Akzidenz Grotesk, and ultimately Helvetica. De Harak believed that
Helvetica gave him all the color, weight, and nuance he required to express
a variety of themes and ideas.
The McGraw-Hill covers were pure visual communication.
Since de Harak did not allow for anything extraneous, each element
was fundamental. Yet as economical as the covers were, each was also a
marriage of expressionistic or illusionistic imagery and systematic
typography, the same repertoire of elements that de Harak would use in
other graphic work where he was known for reducing the complex without
lessening meaning.