Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Concept for Project 2

Last week when I stated that I wanted to do something relating to typography, Dave suggested that I redesign the DVD packaging for Helvetica: The Movie. He was right. The cover is rather plain, and doesn't really communicate anything special about the movie. I borrowed a copy from Amy and watched the movie in its entirety including all the bonus features. What was striking to me is the ubiquity of the font. I knew that Helvetica was overused, but never to the extent that the movie reveals.

My concept involves collecting the logos of all of those companies that use Helvetica and arrange them in a tight yet varied configuration on the page. Within this hodgepodge of logos is the movie's title. Perhaps I could use a black background and apply a grey color to the logos so their importance recedes into the background, and then set the title in red, white, or any other contrasting color so that its imporance is reinforced. The tight jumbled variety of logos communicates the ubiquity of the font, but the name of the font itself informs the viewer that this is the font that was used to make all of these logos.

As for the interior book, I want to create a timeline of the font's history and somehow incorporate both modernism's and post-modernism's point of view of helvetica within the timeline. As for font usage, I of course would use, Helvetica. Any thoughts or comments on these concepts would be appreciated.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

i think it's funny the movie (which i have not yet seen) is about the overuse of helvetica and you're going to use it within your project--hilarious!