gullybogan

Dear Reader,

It’s a little known fact, but Helvetica (the font) started the Vietnam ‘war’.

It also was to blame for both Iraq wars, and possibly the crash of the Exxon Valdez.

Did you know that, dear Reader? I must admit, i was blissfully unaware of the WMD lurking in my Fonts folder, until i watched a documentary on this insidious typeface as part of the SBS Hot Docs series.

Seems the Swiss (Hitler’s bankers!) hatched the nefarious little bitch in 1957, the first true Modernist font, designed to enforce control and authority into a world still reeling from World War II (twelve years later? Cheese, guys; get OVER it!).

The font was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, with Haas being the type foundry that birthed this demonic presence unto the world, after splicing some DNA from an existing font they had in their madman’s lab called ‘Aksidenz’.

Oh, but this was no accident!

Those canny Swiss Nazi-lovers sat down and designed a font that was such a brilliant balance between foreground and background that the world couldn’t help but fall for its intoxicating allure.

Before you knew it, Helvetica (which means ‘Swiss’ in Latin, or something) was romping and stomping on everything from stamps and railway stations to the space shuttle.

It exudes authority, and simplicity, and hence a sense of control. Governments soon recognised its application not only to oppressing the masses, but also to the war effort, and employed it to reassure the population that Vietnam should not only be supported by the US industrial-military complex, but CONTROLLED by it as well.

Sadly, the Viet Cong had some Helvetica of their own, and, with their hot dog diacritical marks, were able to out-typeface and out-layout the best Helvetica that the US could throw at them.

The US set up a ‘Top Gun’ school for typesetters, and trained them in the use of the new, hyperatmospheric typeface, Arial.

Sadly, not even Arial could keep the US from losing South Vietnam to its rightful owners.

The US government licked its wounds, and its stamps (all with Helvetica on them), and slowly built up stockpiles of Helvetica, which they finally leveraged into precipitating the first war on Iraq.

Try setting ‘Operation Desert Storm’ in any other font – it just doesn’t look right, does it?

After spending some time following Iraq War I reacting against Helvetica, the design community finally realised that the Grunge typography of the late 1990s was really just ugly. By coming up with a whole lot of new theories that sounded like they were being progressive and not regressive, they made it cool to use Helvetica again.

Just in time for the war on ‘terror’.

It is a well known factoid that Helvetica was the font used in Colin Powell’s PowerPoint® slideshow that convinced the generals and the ‘President’ that Saddam had the bomb.

And that factoid was enough convincing for me!

My favourite font is Courier anyway, so i had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I decided it was time to get Helvetica the Hell out of my computer.

So i went to my Fonts folder, and …

It wasn’t there.

Oh, sure, i had Arial, but no Helvetica.

Just as well.

Stinking Helvetica.

But, dear Reader, i ask you… do you have Helvetica lurking in YOUR computer?

Yours,
Gullybogan