Well. Someone commented on my most recent post about my latest obsession with Helvetica and it just got me thinking a lot.
After a chat with a prof, it lead me to a nice conclusion about the relationship between some people and fonts. They’re font-ists. A font-ist is someone discriminating against fonts. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like Massimo Vinelli said in the movie Helvetica, there are only 6 fonts he uses because those are the only ones he likes. Well, that’s fine because what he applies those fonts to are pretty awesome.
To say ‘I’m only going to use Helvetica’ is like saying ‘I’m never going to use Helvetica’. Like the prof said: ‘That’s like saying you hate Chinese people, it’s just racist’. The elements and principles of design are simply tools, and fonts are one of those tools. How you use the tools defines and justifies the choices you make.
Fonts are only great when they’re being applied. Someone can use helvetica in a shitty way, and someone can use it in an amazing way. Same goes for every font out there. Like my prof said, he HATES cooper black as a font on it’s own, but he’s seen work that has applied it in a stunning way and he just goes ‘damn. that’s friggen awesome!’ rather than ‘ew gross font’.
In my own work. Yes it’s being dominated by helvetica, but that’s why I’m in school. To explore applications of certain things. Am I only going to use helvetica for the rest of my life alone? No. Of course not. Sure I’ve got a few projects being dominated by it right now, but I’ve got a few that haven’t even got it in it at all. It’s like if you went to art school and spent an entire semester working with only a pencil to see just how far you could push that particular tool.
So in response to the comment on my previous post; that’s simply arrogant. It’s not about the font, it’s how you apply it.
3 responses so far ↓
jo // March 20, 2009 at 3:37 am |
I agree… although I do firmly believe that comic sans is quite distasteful, and I don’t think my feelings towards that will ever change.
neutralfonts // March 27, 2009 at 8:40 am |
By using Helvetica, you crush the design world with a big steam roller of neutrality.
jluch // March 28, 2009 at 9:43 pm |
Sometimes neutral is a good stance, corporate identities often want to look conservative and neutral. Also, perhaps the content in question should be allowed to speak for itself, by having a neutral font it allows that. It very much depends on the situation. Although, I question whether Helvetica is ‘neutral’ or not…Personally I use it because I think it’s a beautiful font. I like the weights and the counters, I like it’s flow, I like it’s readability; it allows for more playfulness. Fonts…to each their own I suppose.