Tag Archives: post-modern

An Ape’s Contentment

The following paragraphs contain some of the most poignant and simultaneously soul-sapping words I’ve ever read. I won’t waste time on any commentary except to say that this resonates with me because I know exactly what is meant here from experience. I know the flavor of the banal art produced not by the forgivable immaturity of atheistic communism (which at least had real conviction) but by the comfortable, horizonless, dead-endedness of a society that only rises to the level of pretend conviction at most, and more often only ape-ish itching and scratching:

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What the Helvetica?

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art: lauradelean

A while back, I caught a documentary on PBS about the typeface (font) called Helvetica.  My roommate recently rented it, and I got to catch some things I missed the last time I saw it.  You wouldn’t think a documentary about a typeface would be very interesting (and maybe after seeing it for yourself, you still wouldn’t), but I thought it was fascinating.  It focuses on Helvetica, but it’s actually about typography in general and how we as individuals and societies are affected by what we see.  For example, from a designer’s perspective (and apparently from yours and mine, too) the balance of the content of words in an ad and the way those words look makes a world of difference in a consumer’s reaction to the ad.  This is a fundamental principle.  The way Helvetica looks and communicates, and its unprecedented, unmatched presence in ads and on the street over the last 50 years earned it the spotlight in this documentary. Continue reading →