Helvetica

This documentary will no doubt make me look at type faces differently.  At the end of this documentary Rick Poynor tries to sum up what this film is truly about.  He says that in today’s society there is a climate of visual communication where people are expressing themselves visually and it is being accepted by more and more people which is interesting to think about.

This whole film highlights Helvetica and how widely used it is, which would somewhat contradict what Poynor says at the end of the film because you would think that everyone would want to be unique and express themselves with different fonts.  This is essentially the beauty of Helvetica, that it is so appealing to so many people.

The Helvetica typeface is a perfect example of the motto, “if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.”  Which is why I chose to use it for my Resume HTML project in Brian Walsh’s class.  However, I could definitely see a reemergence of the Grunge era at some point.  In the film David Carson is highlighted as the poster boy of this era.  The reason I could see more stuff like this happen and more people turn on the rigidity of certain popular typefaces is because they are becoming so popular to the masses that eventually people will rebel.  The idea that mistakes can be justified and look “good” may be very appealing.