To begin with I would like to start by saying that this documentary does an amazing job making the idea of type and Helvetica to be exact. The documentary goes in to great depth on how and why the font came to be as well as how the type changed so much of the world we view today.
Helvetica was created in Switzerland in 1957 by Eduard Hoffman and was named based off the latin word for Switzerland. A few years later in 1961, the type made its way across the world and later Macintosh picked up the font.
From this point forward the type went to because so well known and used that we forgot that we see it everyday numerous times a day. We have seen this face being used on posters, warning signs, flyers, and can be applied just about everywhere. This was definitely the first of its kind to provide such a neutral type that can be manipulated to fit everything.Business’s like BMW and JcPenny have used this font to build multi-million dollar corporations. The typeface in all variations provides a clean look that fit most corporate models, and missions.
It’s crazy to think that what we see as little things like typeface can have such a profound effect on what we know as our society. Think of the FedEx logo for example, we all know exactly what it looks like and it sticks in our head. This effectiveness is brought and influenced by the typeface Helvetica.