a blog to trace the pathway of students in his/iar552 at the university of north carolina at greensboro

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Helvetica

I thought, in my little black/white world, that it was really interesting to hear someone in the film say that "just because something is legible doesn't mean it communicates." In my notes this quote comes right after the statement "Postmodernism is a disease." Granted, I don't think this quote was necessarily meant the way I took it, but that's besides the point. Both of these are quite possibly two of my favorite moments in the film. I am working in a seriously gray area with my object, so I'm feeling withdrawal from my black/white comfort zone. That's really the only explanation I can find for being so totally overjoyed that someone else gets my frustration and confusion with Postmodernism. Sometimes, the simplest, cleanest, clearest way of communicating is the best because it ACTUALLY communicates to the majority of the people who read/hear/see it. I often felt the same way about literature; if the author wanted to make a point, why muddle it with incomprehensible babbling. Some of the postmodern fonts that were shown in the film seemed to make things more difficult to read than the pre-Helvetica fonts. Doesn't that negate the purpose of writing something? In an undergrad communications class, I was told that communication is receiver based. If the receiver of the communication doesn't understand it, then there is "a failure to communicate." If the font/design is too convoluted for the reader to understand, then there is no communication and the font/design has failed...right?

No comments:

Post a Comment