HELVETICA

I watched an absolutely fantastic documentary last night on PBS called "HELVETICA," which was produced through a program called [i]ndependent lens. I've seen a number of their documentaries, and I heartily recommend them all. Off the top of my head, I can think of three: the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum robbery; the making of "Dr. Atomic," the John Adams/Peter Sellars opera about Robert Oppenheimer; and "The Chicago 10," which is about the trial of the leaders of the protests surrounding the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago -- it's animated, and it uses the voices of Nick Nolte, Samuel Jackson and Roy Scheider among others to bring the court transcripts to life--absolutely brilliant.


But back to the topic at hand: HELVETICA. I know, I know -- I'm raving about a documentary on the font HELVETICA; but, it wasn't just about the font. Over the course of 60 minutes, the documentary illustrates how the strands of post-war idealism generated a new Design aesthetic; how that aesthetic spread throughout the world like wildfire; and how through its shear ubiquity, that aesthetic practically choked all the life out of Modernism.


Now for the font: it was originally created in Germany, yet modeled after the Swiss; in fact, HELVETICA is a version of the Latin word for Switzerland. This font was a Sans Serif font, which meant that all the little extraneous feet and curly-cues were left off: in the language of typography, "Serifs are the little feet on the principle strokes of the letter." All the strokes were equal in size, shape and dimension -- so much so that it's now equated with Socialim, in its equality for all (the letters). In the world of Design, the exposure to WWII generated a new sense of idealism and hope, despite Adorno's critique that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric."


I loved all the interviews with typographers. The first, from Massimo Vignelli, argues for the minimalist approach of HELVETICA: "I don't think type should be expressive: I can write the word dog in any typeface and it doesn't have to look like a dog; other people when they write the word dog, it should bark." He was a grand master of Modernist design -- he created the AmericanAirlines logo, as well as the NY City Transit signs in 1968.


But the most interesting was Erik Spiekermann. When asked why, fifty years after its design, HELVETICA was still so popular, he answers, "Bad taste is ubiquitous. Now it's become a default...it's air, it's just there. You have to breath, so you have to use Helvetica." And you think I'm a snob?


Our tax forms are in HELVETICA. Just think about each of these logos:
The Beatles (the white album)
The Office (the TV show)
jackass
TARGET
Crate&Barrel
American Apparel


Throughout the documentary, they include little montages of the font all over the city of New York. It's on posters, trash cans, taxi cabs and many other things...the shots are absolutely beautiful. If you get a chance, check out this documentary: it's on a PBS program called [i]ndependent lens, and the show is entitled "HELVETICA."


Ironically, Blogger doesn't have the font HELVETICA, but it does have a very close approximation. ARIAL is a font created by Microsoft Windows to resemble HELVETICA.