2 - Helvetica

Typography gives a mood to words however Helvetica is like "off-white paint". It's just there. neutral

Modernism

Massimo Vignelli

 • Helvetica as a development in graphic design is a fight against the ugliness/visual disease.

 • Helvetica was created during the modern period as a desire for legibility.

 • In 1950s post war and after the capitalism of WW2, there was a focus in the design word for idealism and social responsibility. Their values changed and they used design to protest against what it was used for previously (function of graphic design). 

 • Swiss design began popular in the 1950s and therefore Helvetica emerged because of their value and need for a "rational" typeface which was underpinned by this idea of idealism.

Wim Crouwel

 • "creating order is typography." 

 • Modernism was about neutrality.

 • "meaning in the context of the text not the typeface." Similar to Vignelli's views that typefaces should not be expressive.

Matthew Carter

 • Created Verdana and Georgia.

 • How to start creating a typeface: First start drawing a lowercase "h" and decide if it's serif or sans serif. The lowercase "h" is especially important as it determines many things such as ascender and x-height and has a curve. Then continue with an "o" as it';s rounded and determine the weight of curves relating to the "h". Then the "p" as it's a mix of both. Then continue making words.

 • Especially interested in Helvetica's horizontal terminals. 

Eduard Hoffman wanted a modernised (more neutral) version of Georgia which was the standard serif German font. Masters then began the Helvetica process by trying to draw out this more modernised version of Georgia.

Alfred Hoffman

 • Helvetzia was the initial name as it's the latin name for Switzerland since this font was meant to represent Swiss design and modernist values and aesthetics. It was then changed to Helvetica to avoid using a real world. 

Uses of Helvetica

 •in Corporations: Helvetica makes news seem clean, official, efficient and professional buy its' smoothness makes it more human and accessible. More easy to manipulate the audience.

Erik Spiekermann

 • Helvetica was a good typeface but now it's a default. It's ubiquitous 

 • It's the typeface of socialism however corporations have caught on and capitalise off of it therefore it's a contradiction.

Post-modernism

The 70's was filled with psychedelic type then the rise of grunge type came. They were against the socialist and idealist values behind the Helvetica typeface.

David Carson

 • The modernists constantly tried to keep things in order then Carson showed up and began 'throwing things out the window' as his typefaces and design went completely against the modernist aesthetic.

 • "don't confuse legible with communication" he has a very different viewpoint to the modernists such as Vignelli as he believes expressive fonts can be legible and effective at communicating as it expresses the context of the word e.g "coffee" written plainly versus "COFFEE" in a more exciting font can express the caffeine. 

 • "There's a very thin line between clean and legible and clean and boring"

Typography was so broken by the end of the grunge period that in the 90's there only thing to do was to return to the modernist stylistic however with different theories. It was more of a fusion between the post-modernist expressiveness and the modernist cleanliness.