Today we watched Gary Hustwit’s documentary film called Helvetica. A film about a font? Sounds boring, but I must admit that I was positively surprised. The film gave a very good view about how typography exists in our daily life and how widely some fonts are used, especially the font helvetica. The documentary included also the history of the font and interviews with designer and typographer. It is actually quit funny to see the different opinion about the font, especially of the one who really gets into it ;).
After the film we had a small discussion in class about the use of helvetica. There seems to be a lot of people who hate helvetica due to its wide use as a ‘default’ font but also a lot of people who totally love this font and call it the ‘perfect font’. Our lecturer (a helvetica fan 
) asked the class what we were thinking about helvetica. I thought a bit about it because I wasn’t really sure if I like or dislike this font. I try to resume and explain my opinion about helvetica:
The font is very neutral…it don’t really say something by itself and can be used to expressed almost everything. Maybe that’s the reason why this font is so successful! In some cases I like the font because it’s just the perfect font for that use. In other cases the font is really boring because of its ‘uncreative’ or common use. Actually a font is just a medium to transport a message. When looking at it, normal people (not the typography fetishists ) should see the message and not the font. The question if I like it or not has a simple answer: It depends on the context and message. Even if a lot of people complains about any use of this fonts I would use it if I think that it is the matching font for a specific artwork.
So what’s about you? Do you like or dislike Helvetica?
Links:
Movie-trailer (extracts)
Helvetica on imdb (user rating 7.3/10)
8 Comments
Hi Stéphane,
I like Helvetica, but I think Meta is the new modern Helvetica
Greets,
Stefan
i know i loved the film; helvetica love|hate? i think i just accept it for what it is. and for that, i like it. “everything’s best for something and worst for something else” (Bill Buxton)
I must say I quite like it myself. I agree with what the designer said about it being clear cut, powerful and you will buy the product. no questions asked. period.
Great post Stephane.
I liked your point about wether you like it or not depends on its context/message…that’s a very interesting viewpoint.
Great film! Now I know the author of my favourite font Verdana.
Beauty for me strongly depends on 2 factors: simplicity and complexity. In simplicity you can reach a minimum which represents the end of any progress, whereas complexity has no maximum. It results in utter chaos.
The balance between the two is a part of beauty, or more specific: harmony.
IMO Helvetica seems to hit the nail. And such it is as boring as harmony is.
Ouilsen, your favorite font is verdana or do you mean helvetica?
Verdana. It’s a font specifically created for the computer. So for instance 1,l,I are very distinct. Which is not the case with Helvetica.
It’s a Microsoft font. So guess what… it had bug. That’s what they say on wikipedia.
I’m also a fan of Helvetica. To all the other fans, here’s a cookie: http://www.typographyserved.com/Gallery/Helvetica/53659