wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Curator Risa Levitt Kohn talks about “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times,” on view at Discovery Times Square. The exhibition features the most comprehensive collection of ancient artifacts from Israel ever organized, including one of the largest collections of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls displayed in North America, along with an actual three-ton stone from Jerusalem's Western Wall. It also includes the Ten Commandments Scroll, which will be on display for two weeks in December. The exhibition is on view at Discovery Times Square through April 15, 2012.

Celebrated children's book author and illustrator Peter Sis talks about creating his first book for adults, an adaptation of the classic 12th-century Sufi epic poem, The Conference of the Birds. His adaptation tells the story of an epic flight of birds in search of the true king, Simorgh.

Original artwork from Peter Sis’s The Conference of the Birds is on exhibit (and for sale) at Mary Ryan Gallery, 527 West 26th Street.

Liana Lupas and Tricia Pongracz, curators at the Museum of Biblical Art, tell us about the exhibition “On Eagles’ Wings: The King James Bible Turns 400” at the Museum of Biblical Art. The exhibition presents touchstones of the translation process, examining how this work was and continues to be inspirational. It also features a series of paintings commissioned from Makoto Fujimura, a contemporary artist working in New York City.  "On Eagles' Wings" is on view at MoBiA through October 16.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt talks about his acting career and his new movie "50/50," about a young man whose life changes when he's diagnosed with cancer. The screenplay was written by Will Reiser, based on his own experiences, and stars Seth Rogen as the best friend. He also discusses hitRECord, a collaborative production company he started about five years ago. The first anthology of work, RECollection, features short films and videos, original songs, stories, poems, illustrations, photography.

Simon Garfield talks about the history of fonts, from font "pirating" dating back nearly as far as Gutenberg to the creation of Comic Sans and Ikea’s font-change controversy. Just My Type: A Book About Fonts shows how something as simple as font choice can speak volumes about our cultural climate and personal tastes.

Every seasoned New Yorker and every tourist riding on the subway for the first time knows how important clear signage is to help riders find their way to the right train heading the right direction. On today’s show graphic designer and typographer Paul Shaw explains how the typeface Helvetica was used to impose order over the chaos of the subway signage. Listen to that interview here.

Here’s a review of Paul Shaw’s book in The New Yorker’s The Book Bench blog.

History of Helvetica
The typeface Helvetica was developed by Max Miedinger with Edüard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland. Helvetica’s name is derived from the Latin name for Switzerlant, Helvetia. In 1961 Linotype started marketing the font internationally. Swiss design and sleek, sans serif typefaces were popular at the time, and because Helvetica is a scalable font that can be resized without distorting its proportions, it soon appeared in corporate logos and on transportation signage—In 1966 Vignelli Associates designed the New York Subway sign system using Helvetica (more about that here). When Apple included Helvetica on Macintosh computers in 1984, the font became even more common and is now one of the most popular typefaces of all time.  

There’s also a documentary about Helvetica, directed by Gary Hustwit. Find out more about “Helvetica” the film, and download the film here.

More on Typography
We did a Please Explain on typography in 2009, and typographer Jonathan Hoefler, type designer and president of Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, explained how typefaces are designed, trademarked, and the ways type faces can communicate with just their shape. Listen to that interview here.