Helvetica

The history of graphic design is explained vividly in this documentary about the typeface. With little knowledge about typeface aside from the common essay format Times New Roman and a few others, I was excited to see how type gets made and the many different mediums in which type is displayed. The ubiquity of the type face throughout our environment marks it as probably the "chair" of the typeface world.

After viewing the movie, I couldn't stop staring at all the type around me, comparing all I saw to the knowledge I had just learned. I thought it was interesting how Helvetica was created as a neutral font developed on the meanderings of the postwar era and rise in democracy. I never thought of typography having that much power in our everyday thoughts, but it makes sense as most things are designed based on some sort of social, cultural, political responsibility.