Martin Majoor : « I hate Helvetica »
▻http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/inclined-to-be-dull
Je découvre ce texte polémique sur Helvetica de 2007, écrit par Martin Majoor, le génial designer des Scala.
▻http://www.martinmajoor.com
Why is Helvetica so popular? This question is not so difficult to answer. First, Helvetica was aggressively marketed in the 1960s. Second, #Helvetica became almost the only typeface to be used by the Swiss typographic style of that era, which continues to be very influential. The third reason is that Helvetica is neutral and colourless; it is not dangerous. This makes it easier for graphic designers to use as a display face.
The best way to design a sans serif is to base it on a serif typeface. Akzidenz Grotesk and its contemporaries were indeed based on serif typefaces, however indirectly. But Helvetica, Arial and the Akzidenz-like remakes from the 1950s and later could have been much better.
Helvetica was a bad idea. We can only hope that in the still-young history of the sans serif, things will change in favour of more intelligent, more original sans serif typefaces.
#typo