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type of semiotics
Feb. 16th, 2010 10:02 pmA while ago I took the suggestion of John D. Berry and watched the documentary film "Helvetica", about the typeface. The account of rising and falling fashions and and changing tastes in typesetting intrigued me for its parallels to the composing styles of classical music. The trip through files of old magazines, to show what kinds of ads Helvetica was intended as a refreshing change from, was useful as a corrective to the sense of oppression that its ubiquity gave. But I could have done without the sequence on the grunge typesetting that rose in rebellion to Helvetica's domination. I remember that crappy era. People who use typefaces as a barrier to simple legibility have no business setting type.
The single most interesting moment in the film, however, was a quick shot of someone's bookshelf, with a lot of intriguing-looking titles on it. One of the titles was The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? by Steven Heller, a book I have now read from the library. It traces the history of the symbol and its use in pre-, during, and post-Nazi eras. In the early 20th century, the swastika was a popular good luck sign. The sense of unease that one feels on seeing reproductions in this book of the swastika's use in children's books, as a typesetting symbol, on the cover of girl-scout magazines, etc., shows just how poisoned it has been.
Why, Heller asks, have we such greater repugnance for the swastika than for, say, the hammer and sickle, even though its proponents were just as evil? Heller suggests that the power of this particular symbol plays a part, as does Nazi skill in publicity and semiotics. The final chapter reproduces some semi-imitation symbols used by neo-Nazi groups. Some of them have similar elements to the swastika, but none have quite the same design oomph.
Heller concludes that yes, the swastika is still beyond redemption. Half a century or more of time is not enough perfume to wash the blood from off that little hand. He is also critical of other neo-Nazi imagery, such as that found in heavy metal rock. If the members of the band Kiss really didn't know that they were reproducing the symbol for the SS in their band logo, as they claimed, then, Heller says, they were just awfully stupid.
It felt mighty strange to be reading this book, with its copious illustrations of swastikas both Hitlerian and otherwise on nearly every page, in public; more so that I was in line at the post office, waiting to mail an unrelated package off to ... Germany.
The single most interesting moment in the film, however, was a quick shot of someone's bookshelf, with a lot of intriguing-looking titles on it. One of the titles was The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? by Steven Heller, a book I have now read from the library. It traces the history of the symbol and its use in pre-, during, and post-Nazi eras. In the early 20th century, the swastika was a popular good luck sign. The sense of unease that one feels on seeing reproductions in this book of the swastika's use in children's books, as a typesetting symbol, on the cover of girl-scout magazines, etc., shows just how poisoned it has been.
Why, Heller asks, have we such greater repugnance for the swastika than for, say, the hammer and sickle, even though its proponents were just as evil? Heller suggests that the power of this particular symbol plays a part, as does Nazi skill in publicity and semiotics. The final chapter reproduces some semi-imitation symbols used by neo-Nazi groups. Some of them have similar elements to the swastika, but none have quite the same design oomph.
Heller concludes that yes, the swastika is still beyond redemption. Half a century or more of time is not enough perfume to wash the blood from off that little hand. He is also critical of other neo-Nazi imagery, such as that found in heavy metal rock. If the members of the band Kiss really didn't know that they were reproducing the symbol for the SS in their band logo, as they claimed, then, Heller says, they were just awfully stupid.
It felt mighty strange to be reading this book, with its copious illustrations of swastikas both Hitlerian and otherwise on nearly every page, in public; more so that I was in line at the post office, waiting to mail an unrelated package off to ... Germany.
