And All

After watching the recent documentary Helvetica, I was struck by just how pervasive this typeface has become in our everyday environment. See, I went to art school. Being completely self taught has had many pluses and minuses for me.

I missed out on a lot of the history lessons and never had a chance to study the great graphic designers of the modern age. I’m sure I would have found such things very fascinating. However, never having studied any of these designers and having not been subjected to their styles I like to think my own style has evolved on its own without too much influence by the people who came before me.

All that said and out of the way, I was nice to finally see where art has been and gone since the early 1900s till the present and this documentary was a delightful tryst down that avenue.

I‘m not going to get into the details of the movie because this isn’t a review, but I did want to put something I got from the movie to the test. At several points throughout the show they talk about how Helvetica has this nearly mystical power to make anything look clean, corporate, professional and classy. One interviewee even says if you take any old handmade sign and just reset it in Helvetica Bold it would look like art. Meanwhile, there are others who believe that Helvetica is a dead typeface and anything set in it will read as boring and shitty.

Let’s put this to the test! I did a random search on Google images for someone’s hand written sign. I then set twice, once in Helvetica and once in another typeface I felt better matched the message of the sign. Let’s take a look, mmmkay?

Yeah, so here’s the sign Google gave me after I searched for “Garage Sale”. It looks like your average, shitty hand written sign. It has that “lettering done by a Parkinson’s patient” look that we’ve all come to expect in a sign advertising crappy used junk. The question is, can you make this look like something to someone may be interested in rather than something to be avoided?

Here’s our sign redone in Helvetica. The words are easier to read. With just a little formatting we can dramatically change the message and feeling. No more shitty hand writing that says “come to my garage sale and possible leave infected with some rare, infectious airborne disease.” We’re using the space of the white page and the black lettering to entice the reader into wanting to know more about our little garage endeavor. The overall impact is greater than it’s hand written counterpart, but is Helvetica the right answer?

Here’s our last sign. Its set in a font called Mom’s Typewriter. It’s a grungy font. It reads as something crusty and old, but it’s not repulsive like the hand written sign. Why? Well, I think the human mind is doing a couple things here. Your mind is making the connection between what’s its reading and what it’s seeing. The phrases “Fantastic yard Sale” and “You won’t believe your eyes” stand out and that has put some sort of mental expectation as to what that means to you. Unlike the hand written sign, however, which may give you the impression, “This is probably just some crazy guy who’s going to try to sell me worthless crap at stupidly high prices”, the font choice here acts as a visual bridge. It’s trying to say, “Hey, look, I’ve got sense about how I present myself and this yard sale so maybe I’ll have equally good sense in the stuff I am offering.”

After all, it is the use of visual elements to communicate to the viewer something that makes them interested in the message what we call marketing.