... Just went to see Helvetica and found it very interesting, i'd never realised before how much we are surrounded by it, but it's everywhere. After leaving the DCA i felt myself noticing Helvetica everywhere which i had previously been oblivious to.
The Documentary touched on two very different point of views about the type face, one side was for Helvetica and loved the shapes between the letters and the fact it was so clean cut and could be used to express almost any message, while the other side thought it was a bit repetitive and slightly boring. I'm on the side for Helvetica as i feel although it may be overly used, it always looks slightly different as the subject its promoting or use of colour is always different. Some companies which use the font adjust certain letters to fit in with there business i.e Staples who have exchanged the letter "L" with a paperclip making the font more unique.
I like how Helvetica is so clear to read and understand as fonts are generally used for promotional purposes (bill boards,posters etc) and generally people only have a matter of seconds to look and take in what is being promoted by the poster, so if the font is too fancy and hard to read then the poster is going to fail to be understand and therefore fail its purpose to communicate. Helvetica certainly suits the purpose of promoting.
Helvetica is different to other fonts as most fonts concentrate on the shapes of the letters while Helvetica concentrates on the space between the letters, the white space, which results in each individual letter being enclosed in its own space making the font look sturdy and strong. i think that Helvetica has been so successful because of the perfect proportions of each letter and the spaces between them, its simpleness also allows it to be used everywhere and anywhere with great impact.
