ne of the disadvantages of living in the southern hemisphere is that many interesting things that happen in the rest of the world never make it here, and I was fearing that the screening of Helvetica was one of those. I didn’t want to buy the dvd and watch it at home since I wanted more of a social-typographic experience.
About a year after the release of the film & thank to the people from t-convoca, last Saturday I finally got to see the film just like I wanted: in a theater with a crowd of typography enthusiasts. It played at the Fundación Gutenberg Auditorium, and after the screening there was a little presentation about the soon to start Typography Biennial Tipos Latinos 2008. Thanks to those who brought the film to Buenos Aires!
The film was actually better than I expected. I already knew that many big designers were interviewed in the film, but I was happily surprised by the fact that it was not a Helvetica Love Fest. The film is a more realistic approach to the phenomenon -yes, a font that has become popular like a car make- and there’s people that love it and people than hate it and both are equally valid.
I have to say that I’m not a modernist (anyone can tell by looking at my work), but to me Neue Helvetica® is a terrific font family, though I’d die if I had to use it always, even with all the variants (51).
And finally, here’s my favorite of the family Neue Haas Grotesk: 35 Thin (super delicate & perfectly organic shaped)
I hadn’t seen Helvetica till I bought it for myself as a belated Christmas gift. It was a lot more interesting and entertaining than the typeface, which I haven’t willingly used in years. I mean, it’s a serviceable enough type, but so ubiquitous that it loses some impact.
When I first started using it—on my first Macintosh over 18 years ago already—I played with it as a face for resumes. And then, later, with my first book layout work, it would show up as a display head face and also for display equations and tabular material. But it became too visible to use on my own.
Now, for the first time in a few years I’m about to do another layout-only project—chemistry textbooks—that use a variation of it, the Helvetica Neue family and I’m eerily comfortable with it all over again.