My response:
Throughout the documentary, I thought there were a lot of good interviews with typographers about their views on the popular font Helvetica. I liked the contrasting opinions they shared, showing that while the history of this font is appreciated, some people wanted something out of the norm again. They wanted anything but Helvetica, because to them it stood for the big corporations, or just simply the bland normalcy of daily life. We are, after all, surrounded by this common font. I’ve never been a huge fan of ‘average looking’ fonts, but I can better appreciate the simply of Helvetica now that I’m aware of its remarkable history. I must admit there were dull moments in some parts of the movie, but overall I enjoyed the content.
Massimino Vignelli:
“A good typographer always has good sensitivity about the distance between the letters… it’s like music – it’s not the notes, it’s the spaces between the notes that makes the music.”
This was the first quote that really stuck with me when watching the documentary. Massimino’s comparison between spaces in fonts and notes helps make his point that spacing is crucial in many art forms. Spacing is what indicates how legible a typeface will be, as well as how well letters fit next to each other. As with music, what makes it complete is the careful amount of spaces between notes. In all, spacing is what completes a typeface.
Gallery:
David Carson:
“Don’t confuse legibility with communicating. Just because something is legible doesn’t mean it communicates. More importantly, does it communicate the right thing?”
I liked this quote because it went against a common belief that better legibility means a better understanding. While it’s important to have legible work for everyone to read, what about the message in the reading? What’s best conveyed through the art of typeface is the emotion behind words. Typefaces give people an important visual of words, and it also has the ability to illustrate the meaning of words and communicate the takeaway message.
Gallery:
Wim Crouwel:
“Neutral was a word that we loved… it shouldn’t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text, and not in the typeface. And that’s why we loved Helvetica very much.”
This quote intrigued me because it shows what people really wanted in the late 50s to early 60s, and that want was for something neutral. I can appreciate Helvetica more with Wim’s point that neutral should mean there’s no meaning in the actual typeface, just in the words. While our generation is bored of this idea now, it must’ve been revolutionary back in the day to have a simple, neutral typeface for the first time.
Gallery:
