But, interestingly, the film is not asking you to like it, only accept its homogenous nature. Surprisingly, for a documentary not about fonts but about a single font, this film was very interesting. | lt is a modern type. And we expected to walk out of the 2-hour class bored-stiff. At that time, I studies typefaces to make sure that my paper looked as good as it could. It features a lot of designers and typographers who have widely diverging viewpoints on the Helvetica font. It's like being asked what you think about off-white paint. I found it utterly engaging. Savan makes several appearances in Gary Hustwits new film Helvetica, a feature-length documentary that uses the legendary typeface to weave a broader story about typography, graphic design, and visual culture in the last half-century. WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. But it turned out the thing was so fraught with legalities that I called it quits after a year and joined another venture as a staff writer. External Reviews I wrote on and off for several years, caught the designer's bug, switched over to industrial design and that led to film and studying what it means to see. Must watch for designer, to add a perspective about helvetica. I think even if they're not consciously aware of the typeface they're reading, they'll certainly be affected by it, the same way that an actor that's miscast in a role will affect someone's experience of a movie or play that they're watching. After Helvetica comes Objectified about Industrial Design and then Urbanized about architecture and urban design. See production, box office & company info. I eventually got round to watching Objectified which is a similar documentary about design and, without realising that the two films were from the same director, it motivated me to get on and watch Helvetica. Awards 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. Underground brings these stories into the light. l want to go a little bit bigger scale now. l see stuff and to me, if it makes me go. And they agreed. Its a movie about graphic designabout the evolution of the profession over a 50-year period, about sea changes in style and ideology, about the people who create and implement typefaces. I have some writing background in the music press. The life of a designer is a life of fight: Just like a doctor fights against disease. The social and psychological ways in which Helvetic informs all our lives are quite fascinating. So, this subculture of designers produces work that shapes our lives and influences the way we see things. Helvetica or Neue Haas Grotesk is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with input from Eduard Hoffmann. so l'm never sort of a classical type guy. For those of us who take interest in such things, of course! I first became aware of typographythe very idea of itwhen I was in the eighth grade. 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. just a beautiful big glass of ice-cold Coke. So he said, why don't you call it Helvetica. Period. Fans of Helvetica tout its legibility and its versatility, but not everyone is a fan. . Undoubtedly. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation Also I'm not sure I completely buy into the theory that advertising in certain fonts has a subconscious effect on what I'll buy. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems, such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984, only further cemented its ubiquity. The film makers somehow came up with the idea of doing a cultural history of the Helvetica font which has become the almost universal default modern font over the past 50 years. this has that, it feels kind of Erik Satie; Or this has a kind of belt and suspenders, and one of my favorites is these signs. While the idea of this as a documentary is very good and the film has as much energy as it can about a font, it is a long 80 minutes. Published: March 10, 2011 I recently saw Helvetica, a documentary directed by Gary Hustwit about the typeface of the same name it is available streaming and on DVD from Netflix, for those of you who have a subscription. If you are interested in the sequel "The History of Times New Roman" it is set to be coming out during the summer film season of 2010. It's oh, it's brilliant when it's done well. Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. 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 all those problems aren't going to spill over, What l like is if this very serious typeface. 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. Those decisions you make become expressions of who you are.. This film is a real gift to graphic designers, and it is an eye-opener to a public that cares about fonts more than we might expect. Erik Spiekermann: I'm very much a word person, so that's why typography for me is the obvious extension. l lived in that period. David Carson: I have no formal training in my field. But that's the type casting its secret spell. For us, the visual disease is what we have, A good typographer always has sensitivity, Typography is really white, it's not even, it's not the notes, it's the space you put, and the novelty at the time was the fact of, lt's the only airline in the last forty years, changing American Airlines is still the, l can write the word 'dog' with any typeface, But there are people that think when they, What Helvetica is: it's a typeface that was. and it's set in a boring, non-descript way. Just because something is legible doesn't mean it communicates and, more importantly, doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type. designing will be still being used in twenty, l got married about three years ago. Helvetica, ostensibly a film about a typeface, delves into the world of graphic arts and takes a deeper look into style changes and the controversies over the role of the graphic designer since World War II. And in fact, maybe they don't exist.". The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. But they'll be, And to my way of thinking, that is a huge, Something about the fact that people keep, that would sort of say it's not just because, it's not just because it was associated with, the rightness of the way the c strokes are, l mean, l wouldn't have believed that those, Yet we sort of have nearly fifty years of, daring people to fix it. is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all. or two, and if possible we will use one size. ln my case l never learned all the things l, l'd say, ''What's the big deal? WebHelvetica is a feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Of course not. you can have a film studio for ten grand, you definitely can be a designer with one, similar tools as the people who do this for a, lf all these people have the tools to make, lt's not just opening a template in Corel, lt's not about having the latest version of, lf you don't have the eye, if you don't a. the program's not going to give it to you. 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. I get kicks out of looking at type. 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. I'm not entirely sure of anyone except maybe the people involved in making this film or in a related field need 80 minutes worth of information on Helvetica. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. Originally named Neue Haas Grotesk (New Haas Grotesque), it was rapidly licensed by Linotype and renamed Helvetica in 1960, being similar to the Latin adjective for Switzerland, Helvetia. 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. who'd been one of the Sixties' high priests, it's right there in the name, Unimark, the, to his way of thinking irrational new way of, lt seemed like the barbarians were not only, ln the '70s, the young generation was after, by using all kinds of typefaces that came. Helvetica is one of the most common sans-serif typefaces, and it is used in logos for companies from Jeep to Tupperware. Helvetica was Hustwits directorial debut and the first of a Show more It's a little worrying, I admit, but it's a very nerdish thing to do. Our profession has long been built on the cult of the insiders expertise, but now the tools we usefrom fonts to Photoshopare widely employed outside the discipline. A Fascinating Look at What Could Be a Boring Topic, Watch and learn what our fonts say about us, A must-see for anyone interested in typeface or graphic design. The creative processes of some of the worlds most influential product designers shows how the things they make impact our lives. You know, that's called an army. tells you the do's and don'ts of street life, because it is available all over and it's, And l think l'm right calling Helvetica the, lt's just something we don't notice usually, but we would miss very much if it wouldn't, l think it's quite amazing that a typeface, By the time l started as a designer, it sort. I just did what made sense to me. lt was a matter of cutting letters in steel, You know, l doubt if l ever got up quite to, So, you know, l could say that really l've, it's ever been made in the fifty, fifty-one, lt's hard to generalize about the way type, But l think that most type designers if they, it tells me, first of all, whether this is a sans, lf it were a serif face it would look like this, here are the serifs so called, these little, Are they heavy, are they light, what is the, is there a lot of thick-thin contrast in the. l've done other people's wedding invites. Only much later I learned what determines modernism, and this and that David Carson: It's very hard to do the more subjective, interpretative stuff well. Off-White paint, interestingly, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2008, produced by Grady. Of who you are used in twenty, l 'd say, `` what the! 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