You should go read the thread about "fascist typefaces"!

T

Here's one...

'Helvetica is not an Adobe font'

On a Linotype t-shirt (unatributed)

Si

The two best ones I've heard are by Weingart and GGL, the first saying something like somebody who uses Helvetica doesn't understand typography, and the second that it looks like a monster with a big torso and such. Exact quotes, anyone?

hhp

Some nice ones via...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22helvetica+is%22

Helvetica is one of the most popular typefaces of all time
Helvetica

Some more from www.googlism.com

helvetica is on airport signs
helvetica is another type that has been overused
helvetica is a _huge_ problem
helvetica is an example of a sans
helvetica is not available on your machine
helvetica is spelled 'arial'
helvetica is far too tightly spaced for computer screens
helvetica is found all over

You should get Lars Muller's Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface.

"Helvomita."

About 5.5 years ago I had an allergic reaction to all the preposterous typeface-rationalization crap some people were coming up with, and wrote the below parody of two ficticious faces.

Note: if you're in the middle of eating something you might want to wait...

Regurgita embodies the ironic millennial paradigm shift
that inescapably results from applying tomorrow's child-like
vernacular meta-language to the form & function of our
technocratic past.
By combining the progressive sensibilities of the Bauhaus
with the palimpsest of Granjon (a French punchcutter of aeons
past), the letterforms of Regurgita tap into the psychosomatic
turbulence of Humanity's future.
And because Regurgita's forms each contain two levels of
information, it is twice as readable.

Helvomita carries Regurgita's spirit to the next level. It combines
the alphabet with an anomalous biological process, yielding the
typographic equivalent of partially-digested food coming out
the wrong end. The question is, would you eat that?

hhp

schmelvetica

helvetica is spelled 'arial'.

LOL

I didn't know "Googlism" web, very funny.

At a conference at Carnegie Mellon a few years back, Erik Spiekerman said: "Comparing Helvetica and Univers is like comparing •••• to crap".

Just wanted to thank everyone for their help. I didn't expect that many responses. I found a few good ones though, still deciding which one I'll use. Thanks again!!!

>Erik Spiekerman said: "Comparing Helvetica and Univers is like comparing

I don't hate Helvetica, like I don't hate cigarettes.
But I gave them both up.

Also check out Experimental Jetset, who are known for using Helvetica almost exclusively.

http://www.designmuseum.org/designerex/experimental-jetset.htm

http://www.designobserver.com/archives/000085.html

Rudy VanderLans did an interview in Emigre 65 last year where they addressed this in greater detail.

Then there was Stephen Banham's "Death to Helvetica" shirts... and his book Grand that denounced the typeface. I believe there were a number of interesting anti-Helvetica shirts offered on letterbox... I think.

I am sure this was taken out of context and meant as a joke. I can't imagine Erik disrespecting Adrian Frutiger.

I certainly would never denigrate Univers which is one of the greatest typefaces ever. Helvetica is one of the most successful typefaces ever. I meant that one cannot compare them, like apples and pears. Perhaps I used the wrong words to describe those two fruits, I have been known to do that. One excuse is that English is not my first language, so certain four-letter words mean less to me than to native speakers.

I did, however, make this Helvetica t-shirt.

Later found out, of course, that this t-shirt had previously existed, but unknown to me.

Good ideas often have many parents. And Robin Kinross said back in 1992:

Meta is the Helvetica of the 90s.

I still don

Eric inspired me to add yet another possible T-shirt variation.
I want to be sure to be counted in the right column--but this is a stoney matter I have carved myself into :-)

Oh, Chris. Your puns are capital examples of how to top off column humor.

I agree. I'd have to put him on a pedestal for it.

I guess that was another one of my marble-headed remarks. Well I can't chisel my way out of that one.

The Face of Uniformity [PDF] by Nick Shinn

So they are the same? ;^}

I once read a funny one in a design magazine -- I think it was Graphis --
which was along the lines of:
"When using Helvetica you're never wrong, but also never right."