Helevetica

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I finally got around to watching Helvetica tonight. I have wanted to see it for awhile, but you know how that goes. I do however highly recommend it to everyone. Some interesting parallels could be drawn to what is going on in the arch vis world these days. I will admit those parallels may not be that closely related, but still interesting. The movie isn't necessarily pro helvetica, but has a lot of helvetica haters in it. actually, it was more of a movie telling you how lame you are if you like helvetica, then praising the way in which helvetica has become a standard part of our everyday life.

 

The other interesting thing about watching the documentary tonight, ....i used Netflix's watch online feature. It was pretty sweet. Decently high resolution which started pulling from their site 15 seconds after hitting play. I know several arch vis animations, including ones I have done that can not manage that.

[Ernest Burden III]

Some interesting parellels could be drawn to what is going on in the arch vis world these days.

 

Could you explain what things you mean?

I hadn't heard of the film, I'll have to check it out, thanks.

 

Of the font:

 

I love Helvetica!

I hate Helvetica!

 

 

At the dawn of my career--picture a sunrise over a burnt, dust savanna as hairy ape-men drag a deer carcass by the neck, looking for a cave to shelter in and some pigment to blow over their hand on the wall (or me coming out of PearlPaint with art supplies)--I had some career overlap with paste-up and typography and graphic design. Nasty stuff, but it was the dark ages and that's what you did. You couldn't escape Helvetica. It was easy to to make fun of such an obvious and overused face, but at the same time, you couldn't make a good Heavy Metal or Ramones logo without reaching for the Helvetica Heavy Letraset (rub-off letters on waxy sheets--this is how we did type before the Mac came along, allowing designers to use every stupid, unreadable font ever presented, often on the same page).

 

Speaking of things near and not necessarily dear to our field, there's advertising. Some of us want to be marketing firms now, which is just a fancy term for becoming ad-men. There's a great book called "Up The Agency" about the ad business in London and NY, and for the short attention spanners among us, I saw this clip linked on BoingBoing today:

 

It's pretty funny, though the aspect ration is way off.

[Tommy L]

Haha, very funny clip. My girlfriend is an ad-speak person. Specifically, the 'font colour and logo left or right' person.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

The parallels I drew may be slightly skewed. I was relaxing with a few beers while watching.

 

When Helvetica was released in the late 50’s it was the best new thing. Anyone who wanted change, and show that they were progressive, and forward thinking used Helvetica for their typeface. It did the job in a way that no other typeface had managed to do, anything else looked antiquated, old, and out of date. This trend continued for awhile until a handful of people got tired of the Helvetica, and its strict lines and rules. They started making type that was often difficult or impossible to read. Everything from hand drawn test to overlapping text that mixed typefaces. Any

 

Now this may be stretching it, think a slight buzz with the mind starting to wonder while watching the documentary. Vray has essentially taken over the arch viz world for the last couple of years. Everyone thinks to do good work, you need to be using Vray. I have even seen subjects where people are trying to get the Vray feeling in other GI rendering apps. I would describe the Vray feeling as being one that uses extra diffuse glow when the light bounces off the surface, giving rooms a feeling of awe, and prestige, regardless of what the room is. So everyone is chasing this Vray phenomena, trying to achieve an almost surreal quality to the light. It is becoming a standard in the way people expect to see arch viz.

 

So what happens next. With Helvetica people started bucking the trend. The more designers saw it, the more they wanted to do something different, but the harder it was for them to do something different. As you stated, Helvetica could not be escaped.

 

How does this compare to Vray. Will people start bucking the Vray light effect because it is becoming to ubiquitous? I can’t remember who it was that brought it up recently, it may have been you. Eventually, when everyone starts making pretty Vray pictures, as a large percentage of this board does, and everyone becomes good at making Vray pictures, then everyone is the same, and you are just one of the masses. You have to do something different to be noticed. Actually I think this was Scott Baumberger during his DVC presentation.

 

I also had a second conversation with someone who had spoken to a poster designer who does phenomenal and interesting work, and they asked him where he gets his inspiration from, and he said he just looks at the current trends, and does the exact opposite.

 

So my pontifications are not direct, or even that close. They were lines of thought that were blurred by outside influences.

 

As with my rambles sometimes, I am not sure I explain things well enough that they make sense, or if they tend to just sound like gibberish. I don’t think anything I said is new, there are already lots of people who realize that doing the same as everyone else is not a good thing. I am just trying to talk it through in my head. Actually, after watching that YouTube video, I can probably try and draaw parallels about me restating what has already been stated in this post.

[Ernest Burden III]

Will people start bucking the Vray light effect because it is becoming to ubiquitous? I can’t remember who it was that brought it up recently, it may have been you.

 

What a great post! No, it wasn't me, it was Ian Kinman. Scott Baumberger may have covered it also, unfortunately I missed his presentation. Now Scott is someone who does not just do the vray look. I try not to, either. Although I did just buy vray, so maybe its my turn to do the look.

 

But when you look at the two logos I mentioned, they both take Helvetica and then make it their own, 'Heavy Metal' using the heaviest version of the font and placing the letters in an original way, 'Ramones' is just H. medium but plays with the spacing. So the logo for one of the most iconic punk bands ever is really just staid old Helvetica. Like vray, like anything, it isn't the tool it's how you use it.

[jkletzien]

It is kind of a fascinating thing, being novel, and then people's eyes catching up and dispensing with it as old hat. Novelty is nice, but art is better even if it doesn't hit you as hard as novelty at first.

 

We are unapologetic VRay users, having abandon a dual scanline/Brazil workflow. It ain't because the quality (though the quality is great) it is just simply faster which gives the artist more looks at it along the way. I think chasing an aesthetic that can be generated by a commercially available plugin is a horrible business strategy (and pretty boring for us artists), but it is a great piece of software.

 

And as someone very wise once said - Photoshop is your money application, otherwise everyone's work looks pretty much the same.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

'Ramones' is just H. medium but plays with the spacing. So the logo for one of the most iconic punk bands ever is really just staid old Helvetica.

 

I have been trying to decide what I think about a punk band, which is supposed to be anti-establishment, using Helvetica, which is an establishment font. I suppose it just further shows the level of acceptance of Helvetica. ...or maybe the art supply store had overstocked Helvetica rub off letters, and they were on super discount, allowing a fledgling punk band to afford them.