Font spotting
After: Drink Coke. Any questions?
Before: typographic mayhem.
We are:london are keen observers of the nuances of design and love a good design debate. ‘Helvetica’ – a documentary on the classic typeface from Gary Huswit provides both. The main theme of the documentary is that the ubiquity of the typeface may be its downfall.
The documentary presents a history of the typeface, creators, context and dissenters. Most interesting is the debate of Helvetica as the typeface of modernism and a backlash postmodernist movement who explore typography for artistic expression or just to say more than the words.
In the documentary, graphic designer Michael Bierut contrasts the directness of Helvetica in a coke advert - “Drink Coke. Period! Any questions? No!” with the ideologyless no-man’s lands of postwar advertising. David Carson displays his 4AD album sleeves and a Bryan Ferry interview set in webdings, a non-alphabetic character set and basically unreadable.
It’s an indulgently narrow subject matter. Watch the film and then marvel at how often you see Helvetica in use.
Gary Huswits new film ‘Objectified’ is a documentary about “our complex relationship with manufactured objects†shows at the Barbican from the 22rd May.