Today marks the passing of a typography legend. Mike Parker is arguably the reason behind of the most recognizable font (no offense Times New Roman) in the world. His addition of Helvetica to the Linotype library, and its subsequent proliferation, will ensure that most human being will recognize it for millennia to come. Influential as it is ubiquitous, this font is a default install on your computer, is in myriads of logos and is a go to typeface for maps. It’s no nonsense sans serif face is one of the most legible ever created due to painstaking process involved in character consideration and buildup. Although not the creator of the font itself, that was more of a series of evolution (fontolution? yea, maybe not), he will be forever responsible for you and I knowing what a strange name like Helvetica means. When I’m in the sketching stages of designing a logo and I start a text layout my cursor always produces the characters in its font. Although I ultimately change it quickly there is some sort of odd comfort knowing it’s always there.
Think I’ll view my copy of the documentary tonight.