Helvetica Free Write

The lion is a random image I found off of google because I needed to upload an image. Then I decided to put up an image I actually care about. It's the CD cover from a great band. It also has nothing to do with typography...

Anyways, after watching Helvetica, I realized that it is true that Helvetica is everywhere where big name corporations/companies are to be found. Or, if it isn’t Helvetica, it is a “Helvetica-wanna-be” font. I was not really disturbed by this fact, but I kept trying to analyze why this is so. Letters used to have character. Letters used to have fashion. Now, they are seemingly “neutral.” I think that this is perhaps necessary for some things like newspapers or novels. It is important that the reader takes what he or she thinks is important from what he or she reads. Perhaps a more complex font for novels would bias what the reader reads (well, not that we aren’t already biased by just how an author may phrase something). What I do find to stray from Helvetica and like fonts are CD covers or web page titles. I think this is because music, for instance, is very emotional and so the font tries to capture this.

At the same time, I am neither thrown aback from Helvetica or from fonts with more character. I feel like I am just unaffected by anything anymore. Fonts that try to be different do nothing for me. Fonts that are neutral do nothing for me as well. ”Do I have a problem?” I wonder, “Or is it because of the culture I grew up in?” I have not been able to answer this question thus far. Maybe I will eventually. All I know is that if I had to choose, I prefer other fonts to Helvetica. I kind of relate to that guy who said he needs letters with something wrong with them—they cannot be perfect.

I just find it so interesting that so many people are extremely passionate about fonts and lettering. People are actually A.D.D. about letters on a page. I never knew these type of people existed. I was always passionate about music, but I suppose lettering is just another form of art and music and typography are synonymous with each other. I liked how one man in Helvetica said that just as letter spacings and such are important for typographers, the space between music notes are important for musicians. He was right. That is what I probably thought about most during the week between class—how typography relates to music.