davymac : pixels+print professional

Although it seems like the Helvetica typeface has been around forever it is only today celebrating it’s 50th birthday.

It’s one of those typefaces that ignites love and hate in equal measures amongst designers, celebrated for it’s ‘clean geometry’ on the one hand and vilified on the other as a safe, boring, corporate ‘cop-out’

For me it’s neither, it’s Helvetica and it just is. I like to think I employ it on merit, if the project requires that sort of look, although I sometimes find myself reverting back to it after experimenting with some of its trendier relatives.

I expect the undimmed popularity of Helvetica for 50 years now is testimony enough to the skills of Max Miedinger, designer of the typeface.

But wait… there’s more - ‘Helvetica’, the movie is coming to a screen near you soon, courtesy of film Director Gary Hustwit…

“Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives.”

You can check out more about the film here, actually looks pretty good too.

So, Helvetica the movie star, who knew!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Technology, Design and Creativity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.