helvetica - AS

When you look at Helvetica, you’ll notice it looks quite familiar, normal, ordinary, and even possibly boring. If you take a closer look, you’ll see that all the straight lines in the lower case letters are never diagonal; they’re either exactly vertical or horizontal. Notice how this technique is used on the lower case c to unify the circular shape.

No this is not the CC logo, and these are not the same fonts. The Arial font is on the left, and Helvetica font is on the right. Notice how the tips of Helvetica’s C are parallel to each other, and Arial’s are not. This makes Helvetica appear to be more round (a more complete circle) than Arial.

The non-diagonal tips in Helvetica become dreadfully obvious in the letter T. The Arial one reminds me of a sailboat, and the Helvetica one reminds me of an exhaust pipe. Perhaps we can associate exhaust pipes with social democracy and capitalism and therefore conclude that Helvetica represents the downfall of humanity. There are many major companies that use Helvetica in their logos and designs. Doing so makes them seem more accessible, friendly, and professional; the way they want to be seen. Ever since then, some new fonts have emerged; particularly Arial and Calibri. But Helvetica remains on top.

As you can imagine, there is very little difference between Helvetica and its sans-serif competitors, so this giant sense of conformity becomes prevalent in everyday society. Personalisation and identity diminish as readability and professionalism (in other words, boringness) rises. So why are the major corporations okay with being seen as a singular identity? Perhaps they aren’t even aware that they’re contributing to the ‘establishment’ mindset that we all have about them. One wise (laughing maniac) lady once said, “Helvetica is the font of the Iraqi war”. Clearly, she has a point. While it’s hard to apply mental baggage to such a generic font, the fact that it’s used everywhere makes it lose its meaning and thus opens itself to self-interpretation. To her, it meant violence, oppression, and deception. To another thoughtful designer, it meant “I’m BORING, don’t read me!”.

But on the other hand, the generic aspect of Helvetica is also its greatest advantage. It is said that it has almost a perfect balance between push and pull in its letters. Perhaps it has achieved perfection; after all, nothing becomes popular without reason.

But now it’s time to take a first person perspective on the matter and tell you my true opinion of it. When I use a font, I want something that matches the aesthetic of the overall design. Many would say that Helvetica works for everything, but that’s just another way of saying it works for absolutely nothing. In graphic design, defaults just shouldn’t exist. Now the problem with not using a generic font is that it’s too easy to find a font that’s too expressive. Not that being expressive is a bad thing; it’s just that I’ve seen too many cheesy Christmas cards that use handwritten fonts as if we can actually read them.
- AS