Helvetica is the cockroach of Modernism. It just won’t die.

While reviewing the new logo for the University of the Arts London in 2012, Armin Vit tears Helvetica a new asshole:

As it concerns identity design we all recognize Helvetica as a bastion of the rise of the practice of corporate identity in the 1960s, deployed with unrelenting passion by the likes of Massimo Vignelli and Unimark in the U.S. and Total Design in Europe. It helped shed decorative logos and present a unified front for corporations of all sizes in the most serious of manners. It was, in a way, a unifying technology of the era, establishing a specific standard for how logos should look. And that’s my biggest issue with Helvetica: It’s 1960s technology, 1960s aesthetics, 1960s principles. You know what else is technology from the 1960s? Rotary-dial telephones. The BASIC computer language. Things we’ve built on for the past 50 years and stopped using as the new, more functional, more era-appropriate products took hold. Today there are dozens of contemporary sans serif typefaces that improve the performance and aesthetics of Helvetica but yet some designers still hold on to it as if it were the ultimate typeface. It’s not. Just because it’s been glorified in a similar way as the suits and clothing in Mad Men doesn’t mean it’s still the right choice. You don’t see people today dressed like Don Draper or Lane Pryce — the business-person equivalents of a business typeface — because fashion has changed, attitudes have changed, the world has changed. But, like cockroaches, Helvetica seems to be poised to survive time and space, no matter what. When you see someone walking down the street, today, dressed like a 1960s business person, you (or at least I) think “what a douche.” That’s the same thought I have when I see something/someone using Helvetica.
Amen.
I think of Helvetica like an E-Type Jaguar: A classic, but also a car that doesn’t perform anywhere close to what a modern car (at any price range) does. Not to mention an E-Type doesn’t have any of the useful amenities a modern car has: USB outlets, better mileage, climate control, Sat Nav, better overall handling.
When I see a designer using Helvetica, I don’t necessarily think “what a douche” but I do think, “what a lazy bastard.”

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