Michael Bierut talks to Gary Hustwit about Helvetica in 2006:
“…[I]t somehow has this kind of inherent rightness. You know, the rightness of the way the lowercase a meets the curve, the rightness of the way the G has a thing that comes down, the rightness of the way the C strokes are like that instead of like that. I wouldn’t have believed that those things actually could be right or wrong as opposed to someone’s taste, yet you have 50 years of history of the thing just sitting there daring people to fix it. It seems to be unfixable.”
The quote was taken from this book, which would make a swell gift for that designer in your life. Likewise Mr. Bierut’s manifesto, released just last month.