Modernist view: Wim Crouwel
Post-Modernist view: Erik Speikermann & Paula Scher
When Helvetica was introduced, it was this beautiful typeface that reflected order and efficiency, in contrast to all of the chaos that had come before it. Helvetica updated the old, homemade designs that were outdated. It instantly made them look orderly and nice. Helvetica is clean, official, and efficient.
It’s quite interesting how there are such bold opinions of Helvetica, the designers in this film either hated or loved Helvetica and it was very intriguing to hear their thoughts. Even though I myself love Helvetica and believe it is a beautiful typeface, when the post-modernists talked about why they hated it, they started to sway my opinion! In the end though, they did not succeed and I will forever love Helvetica and the Modernist way of designing.
Wim Crouwel is a Modernist designer who speaks in favor of Helvetica. He says it is readable, straightforward, and has clarity. He says it is neutral, the meaning is found in the context of the text, not the typeface which was important for things like street signs. The typeface needed to be efficient enough to capture the attention of the reader and guide them through street life, but not too distracting. Helvetica is simply there, it’s clean and orderly and does it’s job, the space between the letters, and the counters of the typeface, create beautiful relationships between black and white space.
Post-Moderist designers Erik Speikermann and Paula Scher have a much different opinion of Helvetica. Speikermann says Helvetica is like an army, it is too uniform. He believed typefaces are never perfect. He is fast, loud and chaotic when designing, the complete opposite of everything Helvetica stands for. Paula Scher went as far as relating Helvetica to the reason we are in war currently, it is the typeface is wars. She says she is morally opposed to the typeface because Helvetica was used during the Vietnam War and it meant you were in favor of the war. She said that Helvetica stood for corporate and that she had to over throw it.
I enjoyed this film and seeing all of the modernist and post-modernist artwork was very inspiring.
kimimpellizzieridesign 