Helvetica Freewrite

I noticed Helvetica everywhere I went, it was as if my eyes had been opened to something that had been staring them in the face my whole life and I didn’t know it was there. I went to work out at the Aquatic and Fitness Center, whose signs in the interior were all helvetica save for a very few. The few signs that were not in Helvetica were often temporary and meant to catch your attention by being flashy. I could tell that most of the permanent signs were in Helvetica because of the horizontal cut-offs of the letters. There was also something interesting about one of the signs on the interior that I believe was for decoration. In the movie, one of the older designers mentioned that the beauty in Helvetica is the seemingly immovable nature of the letters, as if they were stuck in the whiteness of the background page. This particular decorative sign was simply “Aquatic and Fitness Center” written out in steel letters over bare brick wall. It was amazing how much permanence seemed to be emmenating from the sign: steel with brick as a background. The contrast was fantastic because the brick used was brown and dull whereas the steel is shiny and smooth. However, the letters reminded me of veins of iron within a rock freshly mined. The final appearance was that of modernity, permanence and nature. Both the brick and the steel as well as the font contributed in some way to all three of the above mentioned characteristics. Other than that particular sign in the Aquatic and Fitness Center, I was struck by the level of complexity that certain typefaces or fonts attained to have the meaning that they do.