Lee McKusick

You know, it’s funny. For such an ubiquitous entity, you would think it would be readily available to spread its prolificacy.

I just got done watching the documentary Helvetica, about the typeface of the same name that is used everywhere. I mean that literally too. If you don’t believe me, look at a street sign

Or a billboard,

And tell me you don’t see it everyday.

It’s the font that has become the face of modernism. Anyway, I won’t spoil the documentary for you, but it really is quite interesting to see just how ubiquitous Helvetica really is, and to understand the underlying reasons for that success in modern society.

It is definitely a film that any designer should watch.

And I guarantee you that if you watch it, it will be hard not to look at printed words and their typefaces the same way again.

About my statement at the beginning, after I finished watching the film, and just before I started writing this, I was planning on making some sort of graphic to go along with it, using Helvetica to emphasize my point in place of the above pictures, but when I opened up Photoshop, I found to my dismay that for such an ubiquitous typeface, my computer does not in fact hold it, and that each version of it, be it bold, thin, etc, made by Linotype costs upwards of $24. Disappointing for a college student on a budget, but fortunately there are plenty of alternatives to Helvetica.