Helvetica is the New Black

“I’m glad that no one ever asked me to second guess Helvetica, because I wouldn’t know what to do.” -Matthew Carter

While I was watching the documentary Helvetica, I found myself comparing the typeface’s ubiquitous nature to the color black. Both are seemingly timeless and classic with the transformative ability to be both high-class or low-end.

As the documentary flips through shots of every entity that uses Helvetica, it focuses in on the JCPenney logo before cutting to the logo for Fendi, an incredibly high-fashion brand. What’s amazing to me is that Helvetica doesn’t cheapen the Fendi brand nor does it elevate JCPenney’s. It simply exists within their context, allowing someone to see JCPenney as simplistic and basic while in the same instance see Fendi as modern and sleek.

I do believe that typeface, just like color, can express an emotion or feeling. But Helvetica’s genius lies in its simpleness. It allows a designer to not worry about the larger message being drowned out and clashing with the typeface. Helvetica can speak as loudly or as quietly as the designer needs.

This documentary was the jumpstart I needed to begin to explore what I was really conveying in a typeface. Through all of the (super adorable) typographic experts, it was clearly demonstrated that typeface is so much more than just another aesthetic element on the page as it can shape the entire tone of a work. Kudos to the documentary team who made an 80-minute film about typogr