Thoughts on "Helvetica," the film.

Today, I watched the movie Helvetica. It was fascinating to see the varying viewpoints of Modernists, Postmodernists, and those that fall someone in between. The creation of this typeface was truly revolutionary. It filled the preexisting void for a uniform, legible typeface suitable for almost anything. The Modernists deemed Helvetica the perfect font; likening it to a crystal goblet, where the font is completely neutral and doesn’t interfere with the message of the word itself. I thought it was interesting how modernists see the space created between the strokes of the letter as the most important component of a typeface. They compare it to music, where it’s not the notes themselves that matter most, but the spacing between them. Modernists believe there is a reason Helvetica has overwhelmingly pervaded our culture, because it truly is the ideal font. Postmodernists like Paula Scher associate Helvetica with larger government agendas and subversive forces (even events like the Vietnam War). Sameness, conformity and even fascist conspiracy have all been associated with the font. It has become the norm for large corporate identities, street signs, and “big faceless things” as one commenter put it. the Postmodernist, David Carson, explained how emotion, personality, and experimentation are all important to to his design and typography. I thought a profound thing that he said was “don’t confuse legibility with communication.” He explained how something could be written in the most uniform, legible text and still not convey the meaning of the word. For example, David Carson pointed to the word “caffeinated” in the Helvetica typeface and mused how the example did not convey the state of being “caffeinated” whatsoever.