l've done other people's wedding invites. WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Type is saying things to us all the time. Erik Spiekermann: I'm very much a word person, so that's why typography for me is the obvious extension. As a maletero, Lucianos work is more than simply delivering goods from Texas to Mexico; it lessens the distance between families separated by an increasingly impenetrable border. It's just it's just there. As someone who studies ubiquitous socio Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th I use several metrics in this. Is Helvetica the greatest font every designed? Watch Helvetica here. . . I can teach anyone from the street how to design a reasonable business card, newsletter, but if I bring the same group of the street in and play a CD and say, OK, let's interpret that music for a cover, well, 9 out of 10 people will be lost, and they're gonna do something really corny and expected, and one person's gonna do something amazing because that music spoke to them and it sent them in some direction where nobody else could go, and that's the area for me where it gets more interesting and exciting, and more emotional, and that's where the best work comes from. Independent Television Service is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, aprivate corporation funded by the American people. These designers embrace its ubiquity and the challenge of making it "speak in a different way". We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. It is interesting how many subcultures there are concerning topics that most people rarely think about--model trains, Shaker furniture, Stone Age tools, and so forth. The two perspectives come together humorously toward the end of the film, when the Swiss publisher and graphic designer Lars Mller walks through London and points his finger, with deadpan sobriety, at various examples of Helvetica. Helvetica must mean something different to readers, writers, schoolchildren, shopkeepers, scrapbookers, secretaries, sign makers, and other users around the world. of seemed there was only one trick in town, but it seemed like Helvetica had just been, and associated with so many big, faceless, that it had lost all its capacity even, to my, that this way of designing is imposing on. With its clean, smooth lines, it reflected a modern look that many designers were seeking. Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day. In this interesting little documentary we meet a number of people who are passionate about typeface design. Web. Interviewees in Helvetica include some of the most illustrious and innovative names in the design world, including Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, Alfred Hoffmann, Mike Parker, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Leslie Savan, Rick Poynor, Lars Muller, and many more. A diatribe (by some) about a font seen as style-killingly ubiquitous. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will External Reviews Wim Crouwel: The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface, and that is why we loved Helvetica very much. Helvetica was designed in Switzertland by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman at a time after the war in 1957 when people needed a sense of order. that Helvetica is a sort of global monster. I use several metrics in this. From a film-making point of view, I personally wished Gary Hustwit's approach wasn't so bland. A documentary about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture. . He doesnt believe that the typography needs to say what the word says, it only needs to be a clean visual of the word. 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. Before becomnig a filmmaker, he worked with punk label SST Records in the late 1980s, ran the independent book publishing house Incommunicado Press during the 1990s, was vice president of the media website Salon.com in 2000 and started the indie DVD label Plexifilm in 2001. But that's the type casting its secret spell. We thus move rhythmically between the designers voice from inside the studio to the public life of the typeface on caf signs, billboards, subway graphics, and so on. of a movie or play that they're watching. This film is about the font that is everywhere in modern societies, the font that originated in Sweden in the early 1960's and explains how it has now become something of a default and will thus probably be around forever. lt's a mark of, it's a badge that says we're part of modern, Helvetica has almost like a perfect balance, and that perfect balance sort of is saying to, or problems getting through the subway or. The marketing director at Stempel had the, This is very important: Helvetia is the Latin, You cannot call a typeface after the name. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. Designers and non-designers will learn quite a lot from this film. As a future architect, i felt close to many of what's depicted here. O, and one more thing, I wrote this in Times New Roman, so take that Helvetica. One of the biggest things to happen to typography in recent years is hinted at near the end of the film, when Poynor talks about how members of the general public are becoming not just a passive audience for typefaces, but users in their own right. It really does justice to a topic that is so often overlooked. Erik Spiekermann: I mean, everyone puts their history into their work. there to just hold and display and organize, the information. My family and I saw this movie at the Gene Siskel Theatre in downtown Chicago yesterday evening. their sense that they had something to say. I just get a total kick out of it: they are my friends. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems, such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984, only further cemented its ubiquity. People talk about the font, the history, the meaning and the significance of helvetica. If there is any that deserves the honour, it is definitely Helvetica. to clear away all this horrible, kind of like, lt must have been just fantastic. Below is an edited transcript of an interview by James Pallister with director Gary Hustwit at the Boundary Hotel, Shoreditch on the 17 April, the afternoon after the I say was because by the end of the film it had become as boring as it originally sounds. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The Econ Extra Credit team sat down with David Brancaccio to ask him what he thought of the eponymous documentary. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't try to extend the abilities of the filmmakers to any degree whatsoever. You can watch it here, via Documentary Lovers. Other designers dislike Helvetica on the grounds of ideology. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. point where we accepted that it's just there. l know you got exactly what l was saying. Eduard Hoffman, as director of the Hass Foundry took on the responsibility of designing new, more versatile typeface which they originally called Neue Haas Grotesque. Notable features of Helvetica as originally designed include a high x-height, the termination of strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and an unusually tight spacing between letters, which combine to give it a dense, compact appearance. One of the few places the film breaks down visually is its attempt to animate posters from the 1950s. Q: David, you werent a newcomer to Helvetica, Nonetheless he is a lover of typography itself and thinks that Helvetica has no personality. And I'm sure our handwriting is miles away from Helvetica or anything that would be considered legible, but we can read it, because there's a rhythm to it, there's a contrast to it. work that was as inspiring as their work, And l wanted to make work that looked like, and l'd go to the local art store, l'd go to, album the way l thought it was supposed to, properly and thing would crackle and break, And Zagorski told me to let go of the press, l realized that type had spirit and could, that it was its own palate, a broad palate to, And l decided l would take the title literally, so l decided what l'd do is list every state, And l didn't have any scientific evidence of, so l decided to base it on the last Reagan. ln the beginning, if you see the sketches. Massimo Vignelli: There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. The designer has an enormous responsibility. Hello??? Type is saying things to us all the time. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. The filmmaker treats the differing opinions fairly. Helvetica: A Documentary, A History, An Anthropology. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit explores urban spaces and the typefaces that inhabit them, speaking with renowned historians and designers about the choices and aesthetics behind the use of certain fonts. This is surely the best documentary I have seen. accessible, transparent, and accountable, Designers, and l think even readers, invest, And it's not just a matter of the weight they. But it's also: a musing on the history of modern graphic design. 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