15 Jan
Love Letters in Helvetica
I watched the documentary “Helvetica” last night. It was quite interesting. I really like the historical aspect, and could relate to a number of things mentioned since I’ve studied and worked in design since 1990. Watching this documentary has definitely affected how my next minimalist web design for the City will turn out.
You’re going to watch a movie about letters?
No, it’s about typography.
What’s the difference?
Whatever. Nevermind.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of ad-creating days at the Real Estate Profile in Chicago. Greg used to rip on this new guy, Tom or Tim or Jim or something. This new guy would almost always use Helvetica or Optima (or both) in every ad he ever made.
As the documentary mentions, this was about the time (1991) when Helvetica, and Modernism in general, was experiencing a backlash in the design community. Backlash or no, Greg’s bitching had merit, because Helvetica and Optima are both sans-serif typefaces. If you’re going to restrict yourself to two fonts, you would think you’d pick one sans-serif and one serif.
Helvetica and Optima look terrible together — they are not designed to be next to one another. They’re like from different sides of the tracks, you know what I mean? Helvetica is strong and solid, while Optima looks like its thinner parts could just break off at any time if you were to stare at the letters too intently.
Helvetica Medium on top of Optima Demi. Horrible, isn’t it?
Not to mention, Optima was the font used for “Dominick’s,” the grocery store across the street from REP. (It’s no longer there, by the way.)
Finally, I will say the documentary started to drag on a bit about 2/3 through. I wouldn’t mind watching it again if it were a sped-up montage set to Graham Coxon’s Freakin’ Out.
Who Said That?!