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Surely modern, pervasive print typeface. Non-intrusive, transparent, yielding to the message. Convenient, non-assuming, safe. Subliminal, convincing, enticing.
Copied from a Grotesk type of modernism age; copied by Arial, a pillar of Web fonts. These all are sans serifs, relative newcomers to the type family.
A pinnacle of typographical evolution, Helvetica emerged: austere, further removing character and sterile, suppressing originality, a puzzling harbinger of the minimalistic utilitarian future.
"Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere." This is very true, esp. if you envision the types of different epochs. So what does Helvetica tell us about our age? A stark, unornamented counterpart of the International style architecture (also modernist), whose sky-scrapers carry the billboards with the matching 1440pt type. Now look at a three-storied old building below still carrying almost washed out serifs, the ghosts of the times long passed.
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PBS ran the film on Jan 6 and features a site for the Helvetica movie. They have a very witty and hilarious quiz to determine your "personality type", i.e. which type best expresses your personality. Which font are you? quiz. Mine is Times New Roman.
Movie blunder: "Microsoft's TrueType standard". TrueType is a joint creation of Apple and Microsoft. Steve Jobs is computer industry type zealot, whom we owe for Mac, NeXT and consequently Web font aesthetics awareness.
Other references:
Movie site: http://www.helveticafilm.com.
PBS Listings: Independent Lens: Next screening 02/04/09 on WGBX World.
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