Go to Helvetica

I was satisfied, until I read this book, that the "Helvetica juggernaut" described in such films as Helvetica was a real phenomenon, and moreover, I had followed along as others allegorized it. At some point, it stopped being a typeface, and became a zeitgeist.  Helvetica, like the grid and Swiss Modernism in general, was a modernist project, full of deadly hubris, to make design intelligible to anyone, anywhere. It was a democratizing distillation of readability and spare minimalism. It was rational, and it was real. I saw it as the typographical equivalent to concepts like stickman (see below), where all elements were essential, and not a drop of ink was wasted. Tufte would be proud.

In the case of Helvetica, we know that several things were happening. The modern project was winding down, and gradually giving way to the postmodern, with its critique of universal knowing in favor of local, situated knowledge. This affected not only philosophy, but all sorts of areas of inquiry, including design. What could be seen as heroic (design making order of out chaos) began to be seen as totalitarian--the visual equivalent of a McDonalds culture. We know that computers were in their infancy, and desktop design nonexistent. Typefaces were bought by the case and set by hand, so attention had to be paid. So in this site of struggle, Helvetica was well-positioned to be a heroic figure.

But this book by Shaw changed my view, and it did so through a better understanding of history. I realized that Helvetica did not really become the "juggernaut" it is supposed to be until around the mid eighties. The problem, I learned, is that most people could not tell the difference between Helvetica and Standard (and to be fair, it's not easy), and confused them. This changes the whole narrative. Instead of Helvetica becoming the heroic (or villainous) typeface that erased all confused and brought clarity to the mess of the NY subway, Helvetica becomes a player that was brought in later, after most of the real work was done. 

So history matters, if only for its ability to complicate common interpretations of visuals. History gives us a narrative of how a certain visual has been understood in times past, which we can place in dialogue with current interpretations. It can also provide us with tools of interpretation. For instance, we can investigate how certain symbols are understood in a particular historical context, and that can enrich our current interpretation. Finally, the intellectual climate of an age (particularly when seen from afar) can shed light on how visuals should be interpreted.