Terrific Typography

UXD 60001: Principles & Concepts

Reflective Journaling Week 6

What stuck with me from this week. Can I say everything?! I loved this week’s materials from the readings, to the posts by my fellow classmates. All of it continued to reinvigorate my inspiration and sense of creativity. If I have to pick one thing it has to be the documentary that we watched Helvetica.

I can remember when the film came out. It was about five years after I graduated from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. A good friend and coworker told me I had to see it and part of me felt this snobbish revolt as a designer to not see it. My internal thoughts were, “Why would I waste my time watching a documentary about a font.” If I could do anything I would go back and slap some sense into that younger version of myself. I am ashamed to say that I waited this long to see it. The varying points of view on typography and also the influence Helvetica has had on a generations of design and directions that creators have taken was mind blowing. There was one designer in particular whose aesthetic and overall point of view resonated with me… and that was Michael C. Place of Studio Build.

Watching the film made me realize that over my years as a designer I have failed to consider my position on a font like Helvetica or the history of design and how different eras in design should influence my work. Maybe that history should have played a bigger role in my thought process. The film left me wanting to take in more, read more, educate myself more on something as a designer I should have understood at a different level… the type that I use. I always was very thoughtful and deployed a lot of the techniques we read in, What Font Should I Use, from Smashing Magazine, but some of the more nuanced practices… sticking with fonts from the same time period or using fonts with similar X-heights could be new opportunities for me to explore.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash