Citations › Source ID: 6

C3. MOVIE: Gary Hustwit, Helvetica (2007), 12:25.

Wim Crouwel: "We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved - it should be neutral - it shouldn't have a meaning in itself. … The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface. And that's why we loved Helvetica very much."

Helvetica's neutrality pushes the meaning to the text itself.

C4. MOVIE: Gary Hustwit, Helvetica (2007), 20:45.

Mike Parker: "The Swiss pay more attention to the background so that the counters, the space between characters just hold the letters. I mean you can't imagine anything moving. It is so firm. It is not a letter that's bent to shape, it is a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space."

Explaining that Helvetica feels very well anchored in place.

C5. MOVIE: Gary Hustwit, Helvetica (2007), 36:21.

Erik Spiekermann: "Helvetica was a good typeface for the time. It really answered a demand. But now it's become one of those defaults that, partly because of the proliferation of the computer which is now 20 years, the PC I mean. It was the default on the Apple Macintosh, then became the default on Windows which copied everything that Apple did as you know. And then they did the clone version, Arial, which is worse than Helvetica, but, is the same. Now it is never going to go away because it is ubiquitous, it is a default, it's air, y'know it's just there. There's no choice, you have to breathe so you have to use Helvetica."

How Helvetica became a default in the world of design.