What Font Are You?

I am fascinated (read: borderline obsessed) with the form of letters. My fascination usually manifests itself in calligraphy. If I have the time, I may actually produce a piece of artwork. Usually, however, I am relegated to writing alphabets on legal pads or even “air writing” words with my fingers or in my mind. By no way, however, am I a calligraphy elitist. Words and letters are beautiful to me whether they are written by human hand, set by type, pounded by machine or printed by a Lexmark printer.

So, it should come as no surprise that I was completely transfixed by a recent Independent Lens documentary on the history of the Helvetica font. Yes, a documentary on a font. Without having to go into the thousands of years of history of typeface (not that I would have minded that), the filmmakers did a nice job in laying out the significance of font and graphic design in our daily lives, and especially the dramatic influence of the creation of Helvetica in the late 1950s.

The film puts graphic designers in two general camps: those who think Helvetica is the second coming (and font should not get in the way of the message); and those who think it is blasphemous to true design (and font is part of the message). I lean towards the latter. There is so much beauty in the letter that it seems a waste to use something as sterile as Helvetica (or Arial) to convey your entire message.

Just for fun, I took the quiz “What Font Are You?” on the film’s website. Can you believe my incredulity when the results revealed I am “Times New Roman?!” Because of its ubiquity, TMR is almost as sterile as Arial/Helvetica. Maybe I need to get out more....