I hate to admit it, but before watching the documentary “Helvetica” I had no idea what Helvetica was. In my personal life I do not have to make font choices often. For school assignments and my resume I use the default font setting of Microsoft Word, because Times New Roman and Calibri are legible and viewed as professional. I have always seen MeMes about Helvetica, and wondered what they were referring to.
After watching “Helvetica” I know what Helvetica is, it is all around me and I now can recognize it immediately. The documentary told the story of Helvetica in chronological order from the time fonts were first created, and how they were created to where Helvetica is now, and the various meanings it has adopted over time. The film not only shows how the font was created, who it was created by and why it was created, but it also provides many different opinions of the font. These opinions come from interviewees, some very experienced typographers and various artists. These interviews reveal that not everyone is a fan of Helvetica many people oppose the font, because many institutions and governments use the font and people associate Helvetica with these institutions and their beliefs. The film does prove that there are many fans and artists who use the font, and that the font has been used for many years. Many of the interviewees are of the opinion that Helvetica is timeless, because it is so clean, crisp, neutral and therefore universal.
Like I mentioned earlier, I never knew what Helvetica was, and looking back I can’t figure out how I didn’t know what is was, because it is everywhere! The film not only made me realize what Helvetica is, and what an impact has had, but also how important font is in general. Watching experts and artists talking about how they use Helvetica, or how they don’t really gave me insight to how important choosing fonts is in the design world.
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