Now that you’ve seen Helvetica…
Come join us for a social BBQ and meet with your fellow associates from the GDC (Society of Graphic Designers of Canada), CAPIC (Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communication), BCID (British Columbia Industrial Design Association), NMBC (New Media British Columbia) and CDRN (Canadian Design Research Network). Eat stuff, drink stuff or just talk shop. Either way come out and meet your community of creatives.

Where: Spanish Banks, Vancouver
(Look for the tent at the farthest west parking lot)
When: Wednesday, August 22nd, 4pm – 8pm
What: BYOB and BBQ goodies – it’s casual!
– Dogs and kid friendly –

Please RSVP to association.bc@gdc.net before August 17th.

1. Dougal Muir Says:
   August 9th, 2007 at 4:27 pm

   Thanks for the invite - please allow me to hi-jack this comment box to say a couple of things about the film we watched on Tuesday evening.

   The film Helvetica was one of the most dangerous pieces of propaganda that has happened to typographic design in years. It may even have the power to set back the development of typography fifty years. By participating (and even criticizing Helvetica) in the film, many of the most well known designers in the world such as Neville Brody, Eric Speakerman, Stefan Saggmeister and Paula Scher have sanctioned a film that will no doubt have a very powerful influence on our young designers working towards graduating from college.

   Instead of promoting the work of great contemporary American and European Type Foundries such as Hoeffler Frere and Font Bureau in New York or the work of Ourtype and Preusstype in Germany - guys who are defining the field of humanist typography with beautiful and well balanced fonts influenced by our social times and way of living, VFS and the GDC decided to sanction and promote a documentary film that discusses a typographic milestone that was very important for it’s time but is irrelevant and obsolete now. The thing about Modernism is that it sought to deny character or personality in its reach for a purist and neutral design idiom. I understand why this was so important at the time in the 20th century but I don’t agree that it is still relevant today.

   My great concern is that we will never be free of modernity and that great and important moves have been made since Swiss Modernism that are not being taught in art and design schools. For example the older designers in the documentary spoke at length about how fresh and new and exciting Helvetica was when it was first released and how everybody wanted to get their hands on it and use it. All very well but I remember when Eric Speakerman released Meta in 1990 and myself and all of my student contemporaries felt exactly the same way – we breathed a huge sigh of relief because we were sick of being told about Swiss Modernism and here was the new era being ushered in – a classy and elegant but edgy revolution in typography from one of the worlds greatest designers – and we were so excited about it and wanted to know where we could get our hands on it.

   Similarly when the Font Bureau released Interstate in the 90’s it became the most used font in America and Europe – it had this massive effect on designers and we welcomed it in with open arms because it spoke the language of the social times we lived in – and although Interstate is still very important we should now look to what these designers are doing today for our influences. In 2002 Tobias Frere-Jones, a native New Yorker, took inspiration from the industrial signage that had been slowly torn down from the New York warehouses in favor of new developments to create the simple and enigmatic font Gotham – when I learned that it had been used as the typeface for the cornerstone to the Freedom Tower I almost cried. Something very relevant had happened and Pentagram the design group who selected the font and designed the stone had hit on a powerful New York nerve to create this communication. What would have happened had they selected Helvetica? Their pride would have been rendered in a style from Switzerland dating back fifty years. It would have been irrelevant and worse still, an insult to New Yorkers.

   I am constantly on the look out for new type developments in both Europe and America and feel strongly that our students should be educated about the history of type design but also about contemporary design developments in typography – and I know for a fact that this is not happening – either from the GDC or from Emily Carr (who have 3 credits devoted to it in the final year or their Comms program) or at VFS. Guys – it is your responsibility to see that our young designers are in touch with what’s happening today and it is our responsibility to support the amazing work going on in contemporary type design. I have been saying this for a long time now and I have now finally decided to take action. Let’s see this ridiculous documentary film as what it is, a historical archive of a once relevant era, and then lets move on and quickly forget about it please? There’s a hell of a lot of great design to do and a hell of a lot of wonderful typography to discover. Just try these for size:

   www.typography.com Check out Gotham and Mercury
   www.fontbureau.com – Check out Interstate
   www.ourtype.com - Check out Sansa
   www.preusstype.com – check out Phoenica

   My name is Dougal Muir and I am a Partner in the Design and Communications agency Alchemy Creative Group. I also externally examine graduating classes from the VFS Digital Design program. I studied design under Nick Bell at LCP in London from 1989-1992. I am still very much in love with type.

2. Pat Chan Says:
   August 9th, 2007 at 10:14 pm

   Just wondering if an alliance with the folk at the Interior Designers Institute of British Columbia and the Architectural Institute of British Columbia can become possible in the next year or so? Hos joint events?

   Cheers!

3. Carling Wong-Renger Says:
   August 16th, 2007 at 1:47 pm

   Hi,

   Count me in your BBQ. Thanks. Now keep the fingers crossed for the sunny weather.

   Carling

4. Pat Chan Says:
   August 26th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

   This is in response to Douh Muir’s comments on the Helvetica film.

   I am not a graphic designer I must clarify but simply a person interested in graphic design. Doug’s comments on that “we will never be free of modernity” concerns me. Doug is right on the count that many young designers and current practitioners think it be sin to veer from High Modernism. However, there is much to be learnt from the Modern movement, namely the willingness to break away from tradition. It is this breaking away from tradition that I think we can continue to embrace lest we veer far from High Modernism and into naive relativism (AKA Jencksian Postmodernism). I think many of the designers featured in the Helvetica film are in fact taking on the clean cut lines of the Helvetica Font and playing with it, to produce new things…

   It is this willingness to take on and even embrace the developments of High Modernism and bring them toward new lines of flight that I think makes us ‘Modernist’ as in practitioners of the ‘now’ rather than blind followers of High Modernism.

   Cheers, Pat

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