Helvetica

I saw this film last night at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the company of hundreds of budding graphic designers, new media specialists, and fans of typography. I found it utterly engaging. It wasn't just a film about a font. It was a clever device used to weave a story around graphic design, the importance of typography in the craft, and the passionate opinions on design in general elicited from this stellar cast of über creative professionals.

I feel that this film has a broad appeal beyond typography aficionados, which is admittedly a small tribe. The passion behind the ideals expressed by the graphic designers is undeniable and infectious.

The film was beautifully put together. The effect of showing the ubiquitous use of this font in cities around the world, with people walking by, buses, taxis, and cars whizzing past, etc. all set to a totally perfect music was wonderful. These vignettes provided transitions between interviews with world renowned designers.

You might have trouble finding a screening of this film but if you see it coming to a theater or film festival near you don't miss it!!

Helvetica is a beautifully created documentary about the Helvetica font. Now you might think this is a dry and boring subject (as I did before I saw the film) but it is in fact a fascinating tale of design and it's implications.

I think this is a film for anyone who wants to know what design is all about. Never mind that it's based on the font it is a statement on design in general too.

The interviewed people are all extremely interesting and succeed in conveying their passions and convictions. The video work is convincing too and shows very well how common and you might say oversaturated the world is with Helvetica.

This Film WILL change how you see writing. It teaches how to look for the font and it's influence in writing and advertising.

Great film, definitely a must watch.

Oliver

This is surely the best documentary I have seen. I use several metrics in this.

A film is almost without exception a story. A documentary is usually presumed to be a found story, an existing one that the filmmaker merely exposes. We come to the thing expecting some coherent story, already formed, the problem having two threads: Can we trust the filmmaker? Does the story resonate? Often a solid position in one mitigates the other.

But real life — at least the life I know — has no stories that are blunt. Real stories, the ones that weave themselves through the world, are rich, only somewhat visible, immensely intriguing and often educational. I expect to be puzzled. If there are "two sides," I immediately mistrust the teller, because true movement is simply itself.

This film should be celebrated simply because it decides to present a story in its unformed state. We hear from designers young and old, clever and not. Some are geniuses and some see the genius of design and we have no idea which is which. They report profoundly different views on a typeface. Lest we think this is an irrelevant subject, the observations on the typeface are bridged by examples to show how thoroughly it has saturated.

So we are left with the same form as "Ten Tiny Love Stories," perspectives that surround the notion and instead of pulling out the answer, illuminated the mystery. The simple fact is that this is a powerful, mysterious force that makes us do things. The comparison of font design and romance is not misplaced: both somehow relate to the bricks of stories we use in constructing a life — or for some of us a fort to protect from life.

So I can recommend this to you. I recommend seeing it with your partner, your real partner. And then sit with them quietly and reflect on the nature of clarity and knowing.

I can criticize this though. There is much that could easily have been said that wasn't.

Its usually presumed that spoken language is quite old and written language a relatively modern technology compromised to make it persist. In this context, type design is merely a matter of style, a choice.

But there is evidence that spoken language predates modern humans and evolved over time through collaborative toolmaking, most particularly weaving and stonechipping. Acts of hands. Shapes -- physical form, with symmetries. Spoken language in this history is itself an adaptation, and written language perhaps closer to the core of how we think. In this history, shapes matter. The process of creating form in story — all manner of form — matters. The story is how the story is shaped.

We bump against this intuitively. It was why the Macintosh was a giant step forward in the 80's, because storytellers could for the first time be storyshapers (publishers, in the corporate lexicon). And why Microsoft is such an evil. And why type design elements have become so deeply viral. The original features come from carved inscriptions and independently from monks' pens.

Anyway, from that Mac beginning came a focus on type as never before. And several design journals that struggled with the issues spoken about in this film. Pulling them out of print to put on screen should carry some more weight than we have here. I am hoping that some truly talented filmmaker is inspired by this.

The most edgy but still intelligent design and font design journal from the last decades is "Emigre," which you should peruse if this movie intrigues you. Also you might want to check out Darius, who was behind the first designed font.

My typeface is Vendetta.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This movie is brilliant. It's a documentary about the creation of the Helvetica font, sure. But it's also: a musing on the history of modern graphic design. A diatribe (by some) about a font seen as style-killingly ubiquitous. A visit to favorite graphic designs of years past. A reflection about what our fonts say about us.

If you are a graphic designer, you'll love it. If you live with a graphic designer, you'll shake your head and say, "Yup" in recognition. If you don't pay any attention to graphic design, you may think about it just a tiny bit more after seeing this movie. And you will definitely come out of it with SOME opinion about the Helvetica font.

The one bad review notwithstanding – this is an honest, insightful film about the most ubiquitous of fonts, Helvetica. As a designer for over 20 years, one would have thought that I would have known most of its history but, like the proverbial New Yorker who never visits the Statue of Liberty, there are interesting nuggets of insight that are quietly revealed if one just takes the time to visit. Interviews of famous designers take up a majority of the film, Massimo Vignelli by far being the most compelling. Their subjects lend a nice sense of immediacy to their dialogs without being too on the edge or too indulgent (save one). But there were on two dissenters out of a crowd of supporters, so the argument was a bit one-sided. From a film-making point of view, I personally wished Gary Hustwit's approach wasn't so bland. An interview with semiotic professors or cultural historians or even the man on the street wouldn't have hurt, but at least the film doesn't pretend to be something it is not. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't try to extend the abilities of the filmmakers to any degree whatsoever. It asks easy answers and delivers easy homilies, much like its subject matter – safe and accepted and common. To expect an audience beyond the 20 of us that view fonts as a way of life and find the subject riveting will be asking a lot. Is Helvetica the greatest font every designed? No, absolutely not. Is it the one of the most influential? Undoubtedly. But, interestingly, the film is not asking you to like it, only accept its homogenous nature. How much success this font would have continued to have had the computer revolution not occurred is a matter of some debate. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. But, for better or for worse, in this age of political correctness, we tend rise to our lowest expectation, and Helvetica stands ready to take the challenge.