“Don’t confuse legibility with communication”

The statement, “Don’t confuse legibility with communication”, reflects the attitude of post modern artists towards swiss modernism. Basically, the post modern movement brought about a revolution in terms of style and presentation. Artists like David Carson were catalysts for this change of attitude. They were simply fed up with seeing the same typeface and style in almost all swiss modernist works. This attitude brought about the post modernist movement, which introduced “different” and unique styles to society. Not only in regards to typography, but the style as a whole. Where the swiss modern camp would have clean, clear, and simple styles of typography, post modernism challenged this with grungy fonts, and indistinguishable and unique typefaces. This is where the above mentioned statement comes into play.

Through the eyes of a post modern artist, the message to be conveyed, through a piece of art, does not need to be stated in a clear visual manner. In fact, many post modern pieces, are grungy and practically illegible. However, these are still effective pieces of work, as the message does not need to be in the content of the text, but in the visual appeal of the typeface. This is what Carson meant when he made that comment. The revolution against Swiss modernism introduced a new style, and way of thought, through the post modern movement.

In the 50’s, the aesthetics of objects and designs was generally highly intricate, and constructed with purpose. The post modern mindset opted to move towards deconstructive aesthetics. Post modern artists were bored with the modernist ideals, clean designs, and wanted to experiment with many new forms and processes of design.
For instance, a post modern artist, Stefan Sagmeister, even experimented with cutting typography into his own body.

In comparison to the very strict, clear cut ideals of Swiss modernism, post modernism brought forth an extremely experimental mind state, wanting to move away from the so called norms of design at that time. The rational and organised nature of swiss modernism did not fit in with the irrational, and anarchical thoughts of the post modernist designer. The film Helvetica explores this concept, but not in great depth. However, it makes reference to both Carson and Sagmeister, and their revolt against Swiss modernism.

Helvetica as a typeface, represents the modernist movement quite well, with its clean lines and extreme legibility. It is, still used very widely across the world, some would say it is over-used. The precise reason for postmodernism, not the typeface, but the fact that everything starts to look the same, and there’s nothing truly different. This is why, Carson would state, “Don’t confuse legibility with communication”, as communication is the purpose of art and design, the transmission of a message. How we transmit the message does not have to be legible to be effective.