I found this video clip completely by mistake, but it jumped out at me on the YouTube page. I'm a graphic artist for a sign company, and I've noticed this disturbing trend for quite some time.
Trajan, and its font family (particularly Trajan Bold) started being the font of choice for signs here in Las Vegas a few years ago, starting with signs we did for Caesars Palace. What does Trajan look like? Oh, you know, like in every shot in this picture. Sure, it may be tweaked a bit here and there, but all of these logos are in Trajan or a variant. It was, for several years (and even still is) everywhere.
But look out, Trajan! There's a new font on the horizon, and to everybody's surprise, it is Helvetica. Yes, HELVETICA. Hel-freakin'-vetica. If you haven't noticed, styles in furnishings are trending toward very clean, very neat, skinny and flat. This same trend is going on in hotels like Mandalay Bay's oddly named THEhotel, and newer properties like Red Rock. And they want the signage--and of course, the font--to match. That leaves a barely adequate (for ADA, anyway) skinny, flat, neat and clean font like Helvetica.
They probably don't know that until recently, we always called the font "Helvetica Boring."
And now, the video. You will be surprised how many titles used the Trajan font. It will be interesting to see if Helvetica follows suit (beyond Hostel & Hostel II).
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