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Should Helvetica be the perfume of the city?

After seeing the Helvetica documentary at the IFC, the notion that Helvetica could be referred to as "the perfume of the city" provoked me to ask myself whether we as designers should be doing more to prevent uniformity to everything we eat, touch, and read in our daily lives? Don't get me wrong. As the documentary rightly points out, often Helvetica is used because of its uniformity or its smooth modern qualities that we can easily relate to. But is it acceptable that all over the world we have adopted this politically correct visual language? Are we not weakening the messages we are trying to communicate and deteriorating the beauty of the typeface by over
using it?

Spiekerman on Typomania

"A few bars of music can instantly conjure up a particular atmosphere. In the same way, typefaces gives us signals, tell us what to expect, and stimulate our visual tastebuds."

On the Spiekerblog, Erik Spiekerman shares this 80s BBC segement in which he discusses the meaning attached to typefaces

"If, however, letters are the clothes that words wear, then it surely follows there must be as many different typefaces as there are voices, languages, and emotions."

Are there typefaces that evoke certain feelings or associations for you? Link to examples if you can.

Type Camp 2005

Last Saturday a carload of us headed up to Connecticut for Ross MacDonald's typecamp. We had such a great time I wanted to share the experience...