Font-tastic at 50

Helvetica finally gets the respect it deserves

April 6, 2007—According to a certain school of typography, bland is good—and you'd be hard-pressed to find a font as bland, or as popular, as Helvetica. (You're reading its online cousin, Arial, right now.) Invented in Switzerland in 1957, Helvetica can now be found in logos for everything from American Airlines to Comme des Garçons. Not bad for a typeface that started life with the name Neue Haas Grotesk—and, according to the folks at New York's Museum of Modern Art, it's ample grounds for a celebration. 50 Years of Helvetica, the first major museum exhibition devoted to a font—yeah, we were surprised, too—opens today. "It is such a neutral type; we look at Helvetica all day without realizing it," explains show curator Christian Larsen. "It gets out of the way and lets the text speak for itself."

Same goes for the show itself. Its eye-catching collection of Helvetica-bilia includes posters, advertising prints, album covers, and the T-shirt above, not to mention a lead and wood galley from 1956. "They really are works of art," Larsen says. Dubious? Check out Gary Hustwit's buzzed-about new documentary Helvetica, which uses the font as a jumping-off point for a discussion about how typefaces affect modern life. His conclusion: a lot. And he may have a point—really, can you imagine reading this story in Times New Roman?

50 Years of Helvetica, through March 31, 2008, at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., New York, (212) 708-9400, www.moma.org; Helvetica, on the festival circuit now, more info at www.helveticafilm.com.