So in my last post I mentioned the film about a font, Helvetica. As promised, here is my opinion.

I was quite pleasantly surprised at how well this film / documentary was produced. After all creating over 80 minutes of documentary about a font must be quite a challenge. It has certainly been professionally done. They films in various parts of the world to talk to various industry experts and designers each explaining what the font means to them etc... There are a few people who have quite a "strange" character and at times felt like some of them where rambling just for the sake of it but on the whole all their opinions are all quite valid and their stories interesting.

It's quite an eye opener and shows just how powerful this font can be. I particular like the all the various scenes shown throughout, showing all the different companies and signs using this font type. It really does seem to be absolutely everywhere and it's still as refreshing as it was 50 years ago.

Overall I would recommend this, but only to people with more than just an interest in fonts / Helvetica.

Checkout http://www.helveticafilm.com/clips.html for some trailers.

It's been some time since we've reviewed which is disappointing and today I'm not actually reviewing anything again. This is more of a mention of something I'll shortly be reviewing once my DVD arrives.

Director's Statement

Why make a film about a typeface, let alone a feature documentary film about Helvetica? Because it's all around us. You've probably already seen Helvetica several times today. It might have told you which subway platform you needed, or tried to sell you investment services or vacation getaways in the ads in your morning paper. Maybe it gave you the latest headlines on television, or let you know whether to 'push' or 'pull' to open your office door.

Read more over at http://www.helveticafilm.com/

 

In the past I've tried not to post up anything too negative about certain fonts, so what prompted me with the following ramblings? An end-user technical documentation which was dropped on my desk. The entire document was written using comic sans font. What's the harm in that you might be thinking? Well to me it gives me an instant impression of some amateur product written by some secretary who thinks it looks "cool" or "pretty".

In my honest opinion, Comic Sans really shouldn't be used in ANY professional documentation, letter heads or business card.
Obviously there is exception, when it's specifically aimed at very young children for example. Be warned though; don't make the same mistake as I did by uninstalling the font. It appears that some programs depend on it.

In the past I've also seen comic sans being used by a company promoting adult education specifically aimed at those reading difficulties, how patronising! They not dumb or childlike, they just can't read properly.

What's the point of this post? To tell the whole to avoid comic sans unless absolutely necessary!

Funnily enough the top result in Google for Comic Sans is a website called "Ban Comic Sans"

Ever looked at a common brand and thought to yourself, I know the Font Face they used for that design? Examples are ITC Avant Garde Gothic Medium which is used for Adidas or Mata Regular which is the text used in SpiderMan designs. If I were to write "SuperMan" in Mata Regular, you'd instantly recognise that the text should say SpiderMan. You may have even misread it as SpiderMan. This just goes to show that the font is a very powerful tool for remembrance.

Let us know of any other famous fonts you recognise