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Helvetica

Helvetica Review

I felt that the movie Helvetica was quite interesting.  I liked how they interviewed a broad spectrum of famous/talented graphic designers to get each of their opinions on the typeface.  And they received some very different feelings about it.  Some felt that the typeface was easy to read, timeless, and beautiful. While others found it to be overused, boring, and just overall .  I believe it to be more of a mix of the two extremes.  It’s very easy to read, and is timeless because it’s so uniform and simple.  It’s definitely overused and because its so simple, using the typeface doesn’t inflict any kind of emotions of feelings in readers.

Quote from Massimo Vignelli:

“You can say, ‘I love you,’ in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it’s really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work.”

I find this quote to be a little much,  yes by changing the style of the font you do change the impact of the words themselves, but it’s not really going to be effective unless the person reading it is a graphic designer

Quote from Lars Müller:

“And I think I’m right calling Helvetica the perfume of the city. It is just something we don’t notice usually but we would miss very much if it wouldn’t be there.”

I find this to be the most accurate quote throughout the entire movie.  And it’s why I think helvetica is not the best font, because it doesn’t pop, it’s just instantly processed in our brains.

Quote from David Carson:

“Don’t confuse legibility with communication. Just because something is legible doesn’t mean it communicates and, more importantly, doesn’t mean it communicates the right thing”

This is another great quote, and it explains Helvetica completely.  Yes, it’s easy to read but it’s so uniform that it can be used to say a million different things that are unrelated.  And because of that the words lack expression