Helvetica - The Documentary

While sifting through documentaries to watch for class my roommate and I were immediately attracted to Helvetica since we're both Integrated Marketing Communications majors. First, I was blown away by how widely Helvetica is used. I guess I was more surprised by the fact that I never noticed. I’ve spent my fair share of time sifting through fonts but somehow I never seemed to notice the most popular one all around me. I guess that is the beauty of Helvetica. It is so unassuming and simple.

It is interesting the phases that design goes through. You can look at logos and ads and just know what decade they were made in. Helvetica is very clearly attached to the 60s and 70s. In the 80s/90s bold, blocky type was popular and now lowercase, softer designs are all the rage. The image to the left shows the change in two logos. UPS has kept the lowercase but changed to a little softer font. The image is shinier, with a more modern feel overall. At&t went with the lowercase trend and slightly changed their logo to a less “digital” looking ball, away from the IBM type of logo.

The Pepsi logo since the 60s has had the same general feel with red, white and blue circle, but small aspects of the logo have changed regularly to keep up with changing ideas of how logos should feel. They originally started with a script font. That was very common at the time. Coca cola used it and has stuck with it. The change to a simpler font for Pepsi is around the time that Helvetica became very popular. It’s no coincidence. Pepsi probably wanted a fresh feel that all other companies were moving towards.