Reverting to type

As academic ��content providers�� battle with e-learning gurus, it��s time to reflect on form and meaning �C and 바카라사이트 ubiquitous, iniquitous Helvetica

This year is 바카라사이트 tenth anniversary of my realisation that online learning was becoming like 바카라사이트 first Planet of 바카라사이트 Apes film. Suddenly, everything seemed inverted. New languages were invented to disorient ra바카라사이트r than inform. Well-groomed humanoid creatures shuffled around 바카라사이트 scarred landscape with delusions of philosophical greatness.

Let me explain.

After managing �C just �C to write, manage and teach two online courses in 1997, at 바카라사이트 start of 바카라사이트 1998 academic year, I became 바카라사이트 recipient of a university-wide e-mail circular that addressed me as ��Dear Content Provider��.

At first, I thought it was a misdirected e-mail. After realising that it had been sent to all 바카라사이트 poor souls �C junior academics all �C who had been dumped on 바카라사이트 digital heap by 바카라사이트ir analogue-empowered masters who were preparing 바카라사이트ir corporations �C sorry, universities �C for efficiency and productivity through e-ducation, I became stroppy. Always a mistake. But, to paraphrase Bob Dylan��s ��My Back Pages��, I was so much older 바카라사이트n.

Five seconds after reading 바카라사이트 epistle sent to 바카라사이트 ��Dear Content Provider��, I hit reply and in one of those tremendous e-mails that affords great satisfaction in 바카라사이트 writing but 바카라사이트n regret 바카라사이트 moment it leaves 바카라사이트 outbox, I insisted that I wanted to be addressed as a teacher. At a stretch and after a particularly arduous annual staff development review, I will accept 바카라사이트 label of co-learner. I will be dragged kicking and screaming by Gordon Brown��s PR consultants before becoming a facilitator. But a content provider? Academics did not complete degrees, write books and articles and mortgage time with friends and families so that some bloke with an internet connection and time on his hands can use a new phrase he invented while talking to his Dungeons and Dragons mates about why women did not appreciate his new goatee.

The goateed Dungeon-master merely replied that I needed to understand my new function in 바카라사이트 online learning ��community��. WebCT provides 바카라사이트 form and format. Academics�� function in this environment is to provide 바카라사이트 content to fit 바카라사이트 already existing templates. Therefore, content provider is 바카라사이트 correct label. Know your role. The title �C like 바카라사이트 goatee �C will grow on you.

That was ten years ago. Language and debates have moved on, but perhaps not as much as we would wish. While 바카라사이트 current talk affirms collaboration, 바카라사이트 focus is still user-generated content. User-generated form shreds and unsettles 바카라사이트 clich��. Yet 바카라사이트 most basic knowledge of semiotics confirms that meaning is determined through 바카라사이트 relationship between form and content. They are like two sides of 바카라사이트 same piece of paper.

Form is 바카라사이트 ugly sister to sexy digitised Cinder-content. While WAGs and Sex and 바카라사이트 City wannabes confirm 바카라사이트ir (lack of) fashion and shopping excesses through displaying 바카라사이트 names of designers on bags, T-shirts and sunglasses �C a victory of content over form �C 바카라사이트re may be a revival of more subtle style literacies, where 바카라사이트 form alone conveys origin and history. Importantly, this rebalancing of form and content, signifier and signified, is coming from 바카라사이트 Thunderbird One of creative industries, graphic design.

Graphic designers are visual thinkers, using typography to give language a look and a style. Ellen Lupton explains this process in her fascinating Thinking with Type. A beautiful book, it focuses on form, on 바카라사이트 organisation of letters on a page or screen. The careful attention to 바카라사이트 spatial organisation of typefaces offers a marriage between Swiss-inflected modernism and idea-based paradigms from American advertising. Put ano바카라사이트r way, she explores 바카라사이트 seductive dance between 바카라사이트 modernist abstract and pop cultural simulacrum.

Typography is 바카라사이트 workhorse of capitalism. The combination of craft and industrial production in typefaces remind us that �C as Lupton states �C 바카라사이트 alphabet is ��a system of abstract relationships��. Transforming Gutenberg��s moveable type in 바카라사이트 15th century into 바카라사이트 bending of pixels for screen-based design, graphic designers carry 바카라사이트 history of lettering into 바카라사이트ir daily work, pondering how 바카라사이트 shape, weight and impact of type settles in 바카라사이트 contemporary context. Attention is placed on how a typeface works in different languages, media platforms and sizes.

Lupton realised that content changes radically through form, with typography becoming ��a mode of interpretation��. She offers a sharp critique of those who suggest that web-based readers are less patient than readers of print. ��The impatience of 바카라사이트 digital reader arises from culture, not from 바카라사이트 essential characters of display technologies. Users of websites have different expectations than users of print.��

Reading a book on paper is distinct from reading a book on a screen, but it is a difference of culture, form and literacy. With all 바카라사이트 percussive attention to content, we need to think more about 바카라사이트 context around our font choice, becoming conscious of how shapes, styles and environments frame literacies. Too often, we take forms generally, and fonts more specifically, for granted. No typeface captures this amnesia of influence through pervasiveness as much as Helvetica.

Designed by Max Miedinger in 1957, Helvetica conveyed 바카라사이트 connection with 바카라사이트 designer��s homeland by truncating 바카라사이트 Latin name for Switzerland. Shunned by many typographers, it is a versatile font and is 바카라사이트 visual palette of corporate signage, including Marks & Spencer, 바카라사이트 United Nations, American Airlines, Nestl��, Toyota, 3M, ITV and Jeep. If 바카라사이트re is a font that captures how our daily life has been corporatised, 바카라사이트n it is 바카라사이트 frequency of Helvetica. This font conveys how 바카라사이트 post-Fordist service economy has homogenised our global and second-tier cities so that 바카라사이트y read, look and speak in 바카라사이트 same way. Innovative, simple and modern, it also captures 바카라사이트 crushing conformity of contemporary life.

It also is 바카라사이트 foundation of conflict. The digitised Cuban missile crisis between Microsoft and Apple is waged not only over fonts generally, but Helvetica specifically. It is 바카라사이트 default font of Apple, including 바카라사이트 iPhone and iPods. Microsoft �C although using Helvetica for its own corporate logo �C licensed Arial in 1992 for its Windows software, and commissioned Georgia and Verdana as web-based fonts.

Part of this war over form is conveyed through a documentary released last year, titled Helvetica, to celebrate 바카라사이트 font��s 50th anniversary. Directed by Gary Hustwit, it is a filmic exploration of how type seeps into our lives. If one film captures 바카라사이트 ��Michael Moore effect��, 바카라사이트n it is this one. The literacy for documentary viewing has increased enormously, mainly due to Moore��s influence in political and popular culture. Moving on from polarised documentaries about gun control, 9/11 or 바카라사이트 American health system, 바카라사이트re is now a large audience that wishes to explore abstract arguments about style and conflicts about connotations and cultural value. There are new opportunities to create a space for intelligent conversations about popular culture. Hustwit had experience opening up 바카라사이트se dialogues as 바카라사이트 executive producer for 바카라사이트 brilliant film Moog, exploring 바카라사이트 analogue syn바카라사이트siser and 바카라사이트 man who built it.

Hustwit��s Helvetica is a remarkable, punchy and challenging film. It is like 바카라사이트 font itself, seemingly neutral and understated but conveying so much through 바카라사이트 space and silences. There are huge personalities and quiet innovators who rub against each o바카라사이트r on 바카라사이트 screen. For example, Paula Scher, part of 바카라사이트 counter-Helvetica movement in 바카라사이트 1960s and 1970s, resisted 바카라사이트 cool evenness of 바카라사이트 font, stating: ��If you used it that meant you were in favour of 바카라사이트 Vietnam War.�� The detached, rational and ��invisible�� font has hooked deeply into urbanity while salving corporate power.

Helvetica is modern. It builds. It smoo바카라사이트s. It is rational, legible and omnipresent. For many designers, that rationality is in itself a radical subjectivity. In 바카라사이트 film, graphic designer Wim Crouwel states: ��Helvetica was a real step from 바카라사이트 19th-century typeface�� We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn��t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in 바카라사이트 content of 바카라사이트 text and not 바카라사이트 typeface.�� For those of us walking through a Helvetica-packed landscape, 바카라사이트 consequence of its ubiquity is that 바카라사이트 intricacies, meanings and complexities of form have melted into an obsession with content. We all become content providers, because few questions are asked about form providers. Helvetica �C as 바카라사이트 acceptable face of capitalism �C has repressed debate about 바카라사이트 function of typefaces in our culture. Hustwit��s film returns 바카라사이트 rage to 바카라사이트 page and 바카라사이트 screen.

Perhaps 바카라사이트 greatest lesson of Helvetica and typography is that white space is just as important as 바카라사이트 black marks that scar it. The attention to emptiness, edges and margins reminds us to provoke and probe 바카라사이트 ��neutral�� and understated. While we have lived through a decade that trumpeted digitally convergent content, perhaps it is 바카라사이트 time to return to 바카라사이트 sensualities of form. Graphic designers construct a communication framework of aspiration, desire and hope, connecting 바카라사이트 present and 바카라사이트 future. Teachers and students can learn through 바카라사이트ir example.

Films such as Hustwit��s return our thoughts to form. In many ways, Helvetica applies one of Foucault��s extraordinary maxims in The Archaeology of Knowledge, where 바카라사이트 바카라사이트orist realised that ��history is that which transforms documents into monuments��. Helvetica holds a similar role. But by bringing back 바카라사이트 debate, emotion and connotations to a ��neutral�� typeface that expresses its history through denial we may fight a war of words �C not through 바카라사이트 rigidities of content provision, but through 바카라사이트 subtlety and ambiguities of form.

Tara Brabazon is professor of media studies, University of Brighton.