Some words about lettering

David Koeth of the Bakersfield College art department likes to study typography in its urban habitat. Lately, he has been marveling over one of the world's most common typographical creatures: Helvetica. Koeth (see previous post) manages a student-fed tumblelog (helveticabakersfield.tumblr.com) that celebrates (or makes light of, depending how you feel about it) that most ubiquitous typeface.

If you're not familiar with Helvetica, visit his tumbleblog and you'll quickly see that, in fact, you ARE familiar with Helvetica. What makes Koeth's tumbleblog interesting is that all of these photos were generally taken in and around Bakersfield. Multiply all of the local examples of Helvetica you can find times the total number of cities in the civilized west, and it becomes clear that Helvetica is trying to take over the world. Koeth says he's always trying to get his students to look at their environment and spot everyday examples of graphic artists' work.

But wait, there's more. Check out "Helvetica: A documentary film" by Gary Hustwit here: www.helveticafilm.com. Huswit made the film, Koeth says, because the typeface celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007, and because designers have a love/hate relationship with it. (The typeface, not the film.)

This playfulness with environmental typography reminds me a little of some of the blogs I've seen mourning the lack of language competence of all too many businesses (or their sign-makers) -- random apostrophes, runaway s's (esses?), etc. You've seen them: "Special today on Suit's." Ack.

By the way, in case you've never heard of a tumblelog (I hadn't), here, courtesy of Wikipedia, is a definition: "A tumblelog is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author's creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary." Now we both know.