helvetica

watched film in contextual studies last week.
I'm no type buff, i only really recognise times new roman and arial (and of course comic sans-hatred for cs has been beaten into me like a rival gang's colour or something), so i'd never heard of helvetica at all. i thought the movie might be some sort of action thriller with lean valhalla-type women clad in leather catsuits as they whizz around a city fighting crime or the forces of evil. that's what the film title said to me.

But no.

NO.

Just a lot of reeeeeeeeaaaaaally enthusiastic graphic designer-nerds who have some weird love affair for this font which is-sorry- rather boring.
  It was an interesting film, although not as good as my expectations, because of course helvetica does rule the world, seemingly. I hadn't heard of it, but i'd have to have been literaly blind from birth to have never ever seen it. I do find it a little weird, tbh, that the whole world loves this font so much. it is clever though how it fits any message, from public info signs to american apparel- it's probably a good exercise in how to give a font character. or to entirely remove character, which is what they must have done in this case, because it's like an empty thing...
  ...it's like water. It is actually like water, the way it molds into the shape of whatever container it happens to be in. Helvetica molds itself into anybody's words, anybody's voice.
 quite ingenious really.

I've been twitching ever since, cos it is quite freaky
   to suddenly see this thing, this oppressive font EVERYWHERE. (damn, it's even on my computer right now, where it says posting-comments-settings-design-monetise(what is that anyway?)-stats) and you start wondering if paula scher had a point when she joked that helvetica started the vietnam/iraq wars...