Layla and I just finished watching Helvetica, a documentary about the ubiquitous typeface of the same name.
Hearing modern designers reflect on the history and influence of Helvetica is absolutely fascinating to me—although I admit I'm a huge sucker for all things typeface.
The film is very clear in its acknowledgement of Helvtica as a typeface that was popularized during the modernism movement of the 1950s, and as a typeface that was plebianized (or whatever you want to call it) along with the spread of the personal computer in the 1980s—due in no small part to its placement as the primary sans-serif type on the Apple Macintosh.
But I was somewhat surprised that despite Helvetica's fantastic accessibility in print media (and particularly in public signage), the film didn't really touch on that fact that it's practically impossible to find Helvetica used online these days.
Nearly all web browsers default to displaying text in a serifed type, and the online design doesn't really pick up Helvetica in the same way that it's used offline. But hey, maybe I'm not paying close enough attention.
Am I wrong?
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