A few weeks ago some friends and I got together and watched the documentary "Helvetica". It is an interesting documentary and well done. But I found my self getting irritated watching it. The movie is very pro-Helvetica (which is a font, btw). You'd think it was better than sliced bread. What was interesting and frustrating was that they ignored the philsophical reasons behind it's popularity. Now, I have forgotten what those were. Perhaps that we can order the world or that things do not carry with them certain inherent symbols etc. Something like that. The other thing that was annoying me? It exhibited what CS Lewis calls "chronological snobbery"- the assumption that what we have now is better and wise and more beautiful than everything that has come before it.
All of that is to say. I was feeling more eloquent about this after watching the movie but had no energy to write. Now, I have forgotten it. Maybe I should have written more down. The question is, would it have been in.....HELVETICA???? dnhduhdnh.
(I like things that are not black and white that are fluid and organic and I think it's partially personality, I like things that aren't contained. Helvetica tries to contain.)
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