judyherilla.com

Last week, while leaving the Country Inn in Berkley Springs, WV,  (healing waters / George Washington’s bathtub), I struck up a conversation with a guy in a parking lot, after correctly guessing he was a designer. (the Helvetica shirt was a sure tip off). He had just been to SxSW and reminded me I needed to see this movie. Apparently, a second movie is now out.

I put it in the vault, figuring, someday…

Well, thanks to a stomach thing and Netflix online player, I started it tonight.  In studying web design, typography has come up time and again. I appreciate the psychology behind typeface choices, but never mustered the extreme interest that those being interviewed show.

During the movie, one designer was interviewed about his dislike for Helvetica. Stefan Sagmeister. He had a poster behind him with quotes. Some were very thought provoking and I wanted to be able to read the rest of them.

So I Googled two of the quotes:

“good deeds eventually are rewarded”
“government is a burden on the people”

…and found out the poster was a listing of Truisms, which were phrases from a 1977 work of art by Jenny Holzer.

So, maybe it is not so bad to end up in bed with your laptop. I was able to stop the film, rewind, grab the necessary phrases, then Google for their source.

This Jenny Holzer is pretty darn cool. Here is a wikipedia entry on her.

At any rate, here is the complete listing of Truisms, as far as I can tell.