I feel uncomfortable knowing that there are no less than six different uses of the helvetica typeface within 10 feet of me right now.
That being said, isn’t it pretty? If they had to pick one font to be everywhere ever, they picked a good one. Imagine there is probably some alternate universe where the pervasive font is Comic Sans. I bet living in that dimension sucks something terrible.
But at the end of the day, it’s just a font, right? Why should we care about the fact that most of the things we read are the same font? Well, isn’t it literally the symbolic representation of our culture? If advertisements use helvetica more than any other font, it’s an actual physical representation of the pervasive idea of our culture. And most amazingly, we don’t realize it’s there. It takes all of the view off the actual type, and lets the message enter unobstructed. I actually laughed out loud when I saw some of the fonts that they used back in the pre-helvetica days of advertisements. It’s hard to be taken seriously as a corporation if the means of your communication is inherently flawed. It’s like speaking in a ridiculous accent and expecting people to absorb your message unobstructed. Helvetica is the great equalizer of communication.