Helvetica is a typeface that is used everywhere; however, have you ever thought about the history behind why signage looks so clean and crisp? Or where it originated? No? Well why not? A good way to learn about it is to watch the movie. Yes, there is a whole movie devoted to Helvetica. We watched it in our Adv. Typography class, wrote a paper on it, then created DVD cases using only the Helvetica font and our body copy.

The project did not enamor me at all, sorry to say. However, I loved (!!!) the movie and it gave me a lot to think about in my new career direction. If you watch the documentary then you might recognize that one case is Swiss style design (very crisp, clean, and no frills). The second (colorful, more expressive) one is “Swiss with a twist”.

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