I watched Helvetica for my blog extra credit. The identity of Helvetica is very simple but has been constructed in a very detail oriented way. There were a few great conversations through this documentary that really highlight the true identity of Helvetica. Helvetica became popular in 1957 and was constructed by Alfred Hoffmann from Switzerland. Hoffmann explains in this documentary how his father and him self created the Helvetica typeface and were very critical of other text designs. They wanted to create a text that played with negative space, making the background important to hold the letters in place. Wim Crouwel describes Helvetica as being clear, “… it should be clear it should be readable, it should be straight forward.” “… a real step from the 19th century typeface” He says that “neutralism” (Wim Crouwel, Helvetica) is important that the text itself should not have a meaning within the typeface because the meaning is in the context of the text. Helvetica is an awesome type face that can be used for anything, the context of what it is being used for becomes important but when something is used so often it does begin to lack impact thus on the other side of things Erik Spiekermann had a lot to say about why Helvetica should not be used as much and how it has become a “default”. “… real type face comes from rhythm and contrast, it comes from handwriting.” type face should be individual “ telling the audience, ‘this is you!’” (Erik Spiekerman, Helvetica) I understand both sides of the story and I think this documentary also does a great job of showing them evenly. But I also notice that Helvetica is being used everywhere still today and it must be used for a reason… it just works!
Work Sited
- Helvetica. Dir. Gary Hustwit. Perf. Michael Bierut, Wim Crouwel, Erik Spiekermann,Paula Scher, Otmar Hoefer, Neville Brody. 2007. Netflixs. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.