Helvetica Concentrated
a computer font
2003
created in collaboration with Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain

Helvetica Concentrated is a font that takes the form of variously sized black dots. Their diameter is derived from the letters, numbers and symbols of the Helvetica Regular font. Graphic designers and artists currently consider this font to be the height of legibility and intelligibility in typography. One of the reasons for their conviction is the popularity of Macintosh computers in these two professions. And the Helvetica font is the system-wide typeface used by this company’s operating system. Myself, Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain used the AutoCAD program to measure the surface area of each character. We then derived the sizes of each dot from these measurements, producing the symbols of a new font that we termed Helvetica Concentrated. By transforming the codified forms of the different characters of the Roman alphabet into the most perfect form possible, we have at the same time touched upon something of the essence of writing and language - the dream of perfect communication and perfect transmission.