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True story: When I was in high school, one of my classmates found it incredibly amusing to accuse me of writing in fonts. “What font are you using today?” he’d ask. I didn’t feel particularly defensive about my handwriting; mainly, I just felt a little lame because I never did come up with a snappy name for my font.

True story: In that same high school, my chemistry teacher would pay me to address all her Christmas cards over lunch break. I used my plain, everyday font, which seemed quite good enough for her. I appreciated the cash, but she did make us listen to the Mannheim Steamroller holiday album during labs all through the month of December, which erased some of that warm fuzzy feeling.

True story: I’ve wondered for most of my reading life how writers can bring themselves to choose the right font for their books. It always seem such a crucial decision, made paralyzingly difficult by the sheer number of fonts available. I mean, your book will say the same thing no matter what, but it will also communicate something subtly different with every new font. Where does one even begin? (In that vein, I do love it when books include a note on the history of the chosen typeface. It makes me believe someone else agonizes over the same details.)

More trues: My handwriting changes pretty drastically from day to day. Graphology buffs might tell you that I have something to hide, or that my pen betrays an occult tendency toward erratic behavior. I’d counter that I probably should have been a type designer.

Last night, I capped another twelve-hour Friday (my Friday, anyhow) with a tasty adult beverage, bilateral dog snuggles, and a documentary fest. The queue gremlins over at Netflix deemed it time to send Helvetica my way, and I didn’t argue with them. So far, they’ve been pretty right on with their selections.

Helvetica is a movie about a font (typeface, really, but I think font won out in this age of MS Word). That’s it.

You can click back to failblog now for some real entertainment.

Still here? Good. Seriously, if you’ve ever just stared at something because its line, its form was hypnotically perfect–words, letters, yes, but anything with a shape could fall into this category–then you will appreciate this film. I loved the way seemingly sane, rational individuals positively gushed about the shape of Helvetica, and the pure poetry that they used to describe how a well-crafted font is more than just letters.

Truthfully, I’m not a fan of Helvetica. Never have been. Probably because of its now-ubiquitous, corporate associations, Helvetica feels like plastic. It’s tasteless, neutral, devoid of personality. A designer in the film declares that Helvetica is “like the air.” He seems to mean it as a compliment, though, to my thinking, venerating Helvetica is akin to celebrating a well-constructed plastic shopping bag. They’re both utilitarian, distinctly modern but strangely timeless, easily attached to a logo or corporate identity, just as easily forgotten, and, above all, common as dirt. Helvetica is the lowest common denominator of fonts. While that may have its own certain kind of genius, it’s also part of the consuming banality of pop culture. (I’ve never been a Warhol fan, either… can you tell?)

That being said, I was fascinated by how the filmmakers used Helvetica as an entrée into a more general exploration of what purpose a font serves and into how form dictates our response. Just as a person who dots her I’s with little hearts or writes in a loopy, third-grade cursive will seem frivolous on paper, so will choice of typeface communicate content before you’ve even read its words.

There was a floral shop near the university here in town that used the Papyrus typeface for its signage. I can’t tell you why, exactly, but it always drove me crazy. It seemed wrong, but not for a simple clash of aethestic preferences. It seemed to indicate a certain laziness, or inattention to detail. Or perhaps I’ve had too much of the snobby kool-aid, and the poor proprietor just liked the way it looked. Either way, this place set itself apart from all other flower shops not with its name, but with how it said its name.

Form, that sycophant, may follow function, but perception is form’s shadow, always there, no matter which way the sun is shining.

The What Font Are You? quiz tells me I’m Courier.

I hate Courier.