They know the type (and now they know it)
During last week’s Copenhagen screening of Helvetica, the director Gary Hustwit asked all graphic designers to raise their hands. A fairly large number of hands were not raised. It is hard to say if these belonged to very cool graphic designers who couldn’t be bothered, or if they were the hands of non-graphic designers (like Hustwit) who just happened to like type. Fact is that BBC World recently reviewed the Helvetica-film, that MoMA currently runs a very successful exhibition to celebrate Helvetica’s birthday and that the danish newspaper Politiken had an article on Helvetica last saturday…
Is typography becoming some sort of general hobby? Something to be discussed at dinner parties and on first dates in the future? Will »what kind of music do you like?« be followed by »tell me about your favorite typeface«? The film Helvetica certainly describes how graphic design and typography has been adapted by non-designers, and how it is used to express individuality and identity as on myspace.com.
The film features (among others) Wim Crouwel and Massimo Vignelli looking very pleased with themselves and their careers. But as they flick through their excellent helvetica-based design from the 60s, it is hard not think that their clients were much easier to seduce and persuade than today’s clients. That Crouwel and Vignelli were respected as specialists in a way that is sadly no longer guaranteed. Today we discuss size, colour and composition with our clients, but will we be discussing x-heights, terminals and ascenders in the future?
The article »You know the type (you just don’t know it)«, written by non-graphic designer Nils Thorsen:
Cleo