Earlier this semester in my English class we read In Our Time, a novel by Ernest Hemingway. It is a very challenging piece of work because there is this long debate over whether it is a novel or a collection of short stories (which, by the way, makes a world of difference). As we were discussing some of the material, a woman sitting across the room and in front of me began to comment. I looked in her direction and immediately got upset, wanting to say, “Hey! You can’t comment on this book. What you have to say doesn’t matter because your pages are yellow instead of white—that’s a completely different book.”

I didn’t say it.

Last night I went to the documentary Helvetica. It is, indeed, about the font. It is also about the space that surrounds the font. It is about the meaning of a font, and how it changes what is written, and how the empty page around the font also changes what is written.

Helvetica is literally everywhere. Virtually everything commercial is written in it. Opposition from some segments of the graphic design community is fierce, while support is equally fierce. And how. Graphic artists, as stated in the film, are much like doctors: out to cure the world from the malady of ugliness.

Prior to last night I was vaguely aware that the font existed, but I did not know about the controversy. Or where I stood on it. In seeing huge portions of my life that have been defined by Helvetica, I realized that I have a certain affinity for it. I support the almost bland quality—the absolute objectivity, actually—that it embodies. It may be an artificial thing created about fifty years ago, but to me it is integrally linked to the effort to create a system of symbols that are as nearly the sounds they represent as possible.

Note: This is not written in Helvetica. I couldn't get it to work. Ironic, huh?