Helvetica Movie quotations

"Typeface is your main weapon in modern communication" Neville Brody

    We see typeface everywhere on walls, cars, buildings, in the sky and we don't even realize it and if you started looking around at the different typefaces you will notice that you will constantly see Helvetica. Even now you are reading this blog post in helvetica. In all of our advertising designers are faced with a big choice of what typeface they should use to express the message or feelings of the advertising, company or campaign, etc. Typeface is our main weapon in modern society today. Neville used this example to describe his reasoning, If you had a jeans sale and one advertisement used ragged and rough typeface, and the other used clean and sharp typeface they would both display different messages. The rough and ragged typeface would stand out and advertise that the jeans on sale will make you stand out. The sharp and clean typeface will show that the jeans are nothing  but normal and they are just regular jeans. 

   I agree with Neville because you could use any font to advertise or express something , you just have to choose the right one and sometimes it can be difficult because you don't know what would be the best. In the film many designers agree that you can use helvetica for most things. You can make it bold or give it italics to express the specific feelings.But some designers disagree and some are in the middle.

"It's air, you know. It's just there. There's no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica" Erik Spiekermann

Speikermann is on the opposite side as Neville and believes helvetica is too over used. He compares Helvetica to air and mentions that like air Helvetica is just there and it is now in our world just like we need air to live. It's everywhere and now we can't take it away. Spiekermann uses the example of a person heavy in the middle walking around in a tight shirt, it would look weird. Helvetica is like that in the sense meaning it won't always work for everything but most people just go to helvetica because it's there.For me specifically I need to choose what typeface represents my work that I am creating and make sure I am conveying the message I should be conveying. Spiekermann just wants something different. I don't agree with Spiekermann but I am also not a typography designer and haven't been creating different typefaces for years.Until watching this video I really didn't see that most print I read or saw was in Helvetica but now that I have recognized it everywhere I have noticed that even though most brands and company's use it, they add something or do something to it to show it represents there brand or company. For example American Apparel and American airlines both use helvetica but they both give off different expressions. American Apparel expresses fun and creativity and American airlines expresses professional and reliable.


Typography is everywhere and after reading this blog you will identify helvetica whereever you go.