Blog #3 - Helvetica, A design I like

You may recognize the font name as the default font on Microsoft Word. However, the HELVETICA font has shaped and redefined the nature of logos, typography, and graphic design. Whether you realize or not, this typeface absolutely ubiquitous in daily life. The billboards you see, the packaging on your food, and even the material you read will probably contain the Helvetica font.

See the American Apparel logo? American Apparel is known for it’s Made in the USA clothing products and it’s raunchy sexually explicit ads. The world-famous clothing company also uses the Helvetica font as it’s official logo. The use of Helvetica in the American Apparel logo exudes a vogue element to American Apparel’s plain patternless clothing. It’s telling the consumer that it’s clothes are sleek, simple, and utterly contemporary- as compared to say, Fruit of the Loom.

Another American company that solely uses Helvetica is American Airlines. Their logo, as shown above, has been in place for nearly 40 years. The red and blue AA lets the consumer know that it’s American and it’s Helvetica typeface is a classic example of it’s clinical modernity.

Helvetica is an interesting font that has been around since the late 50’s. It was created by Swiss graphic designers, Max Miedinger and Edward Hoffman in 1957 to compete with another popular Akzidenz-Grotesk font in the Swiss Market.

Since then, it has evolved into many different forms, Helvetica Bold, Helvetica Light, and Helvetica Neue. Helvetica Neue is a reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths. Helvetica Neue’s rational typeface are abundantly used in blogs and on websites which give a contemporary experience for the web user. The importance of simplicity and modernity with it’s typeface conveys a legible and intelligible view for most websites using it’s font. Currently, Helvetica Neue is a popular font for Microsoft Word.

Overall, Helvetica Neue is Helvetica’s updated daughter, classic yet fashionable in the world of graphic design. As seen here, it is used as the logo for the famous CW show, Gossip Girl, a show about the modern lives of teenagers living in the Upper East Side.

Entry #2 - What I see

Almost Famous, directed by Cameron Crowe, has been one of my favourite movies since I was a pre-teen. Almost Famous is a film set in the early 1970’s based on Cameron Crowe’s adventures on tour as a teenage rock journalist for Rolling Stone.

The beginning of the film starts with a series of very focused shots of a yellow legal pad of notebook paper and person writing the opening credits with a pencil. Looking at the yellow legal pad, the names are in center depth of field for the most of the opening credits; the entire area is in sharp focus where the viewer can clearly read the credits of the film.

In between each name, the film cuts to full deep depth of field shots of Crowe’s rock-and-roll memorabilia like ticket stubs, old backstage passes, hotel keys, etc. The opening credit scene appears to have been shot with a telephoto lens. In the opening credits the viewer has a restricted view of specific objects; they are limited seeing the legal yellow pad and Crowe’s memorabilia, which creates the impression of shallow depth of field.

The opening credits in Almost Famous gives the film a serious journalistic beginning; the viewer gets a sense of how serious and factual teenage journalist William Miller takes his job and how ends up on quite an adventure. The rock-and-roll mementos demonstrate the director’s conveyance of how this period of life was extremely influential and somewhat hysterical.

Yesterday I took the afternoon to go to the Museum of Moving Image in Astoria, NY. At first, I could not find the museum because the museum’s structure did not look distinctive to my eyes. Unfortunately, the museum is undergoing renovations right now; only two floors of the museum are open and the exterior of it looks like a trailer.

However, I made my entry through the admissions trailer and proceeded to the second floor. I was very excited to walk through the entire Behind the Screen exhibit. The history of the Golden Age of Hollywood was all around me. There were plenty of old photos, historical film cameras, and old televisions and radios. The plethora of artifacts were numerous and quite fascinating. I poured through much of the exhibit for several hours until closing.

Here are some of the highlights of my visit. This picture above of several cathode ray tubes were used in some of the earliest made black and white television sets. Professor Mercado explained the physics of how the cathode ray tubes project images onto the television screen. It was absolutely delightful that I actually got to see a real old-fashioned cathode ray! After actually seeing it in person, the entire process of light projecton to television image became less abstract and more tangible.

This picture is an underexposed photo of an Edison Kinetoscope. Unfortunately, unlike Lumiere’s Cinematographe, the Kinetoscope could not print or project film. The Kinetoscope was a wonderful invention for its time, however, it was primarily used as a viewing machine where patrons could watch a 30 second film for 25 cents through a viewfinder. The Lumiere Cinematographe was a much more efficient device for its time; the user could use the hand-crank to power it and its light weight made it portable.

(I apologize for the extremely overexposed light on the marquee)

On the third floor, I walked into Tut’s fever, which is essentially the Museum of Moving Image’s little movie theater. They were showing The Red Balloon as their film of the week. Unfortunately, I wanted to see more of the museum and did not have time to see the film. I walked inside Tut’s fever and it looked like the inside of a cartoon pyramid! There was even an area where you could pull a lever to see a mummy come out of his grave!

The Museum of Moving Image had a variety of costumes on display. I had the pleasure of seeing some of the costumes from the movie Chicago and costumes that were used in the Cosby Show and skits in Saturday Night Live. I saw this huge Gumby costume and had to take a photo of it. I plumb forgot to read what movie or tv show this costume was used in.

Overall, my trip to the museum was oodles of fun. I spent the last hour playing video games in the History of Video Games section. It’s been years since I’ve played Super Mario Brothers on an 8-bit Nintendo and Sonic the Hedgehog on a 16-bit Sega Genesis. It’s also really sad that I was able to easily beat those games at ages 5 and 6; now I see ‘GAME OVER’ after the second levels. Sigh.