A reflection about what our fonts say about us. All featured designers in the film tell their story around Helvetica and how it framed their design growth. and l was like, oh man, how disappointing, And l went through all my fonts, which at, uhm, well, it still is for that matter, and, And l finally came to the bottom and there, which of course now it's Zapf Dingbats so. lt's the most stressful job l've ever had. WebHelvetica is a feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. We think that Helvetica contains somehow a design program. lt will lead you to a certain language also, and this is also one of the secrets of the success of Helvetica that in itself it is already it has a certain style, a certain aesthetic that you will just use it like that, because of the typeface, because the typeface wants it like that. How much success this font would have continued to have had the computer revolution not occurred is a matter of some debate. 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. They didn't know what they were caring for. Helvetica, do you know? lt's been around for fifty years, coming up. Being the geek I am, when I first heard the title, I was there! WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. l want to go a little bit bigger scale now. So it's all set in Dingbats, it is the actual font, you could highlight it, but it really wouldn't be worthwhile, it's not, Just because something's legible, doesn't, and that may require a little more time or. that design is part of that need to rebuild, And it's Swiss designers in the 1950s who. 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. Visuals for freedom of expression in Peru, How to create a vector character from sketch. but with a new set of theories to support it. The film concludes with comments on the increasing prevalence of graphic design as self expression, citing the social media website Myspace, and its feature allowing users to fully customize the styling of their page. In the end Helvetica is not just about Helvetica. Helvetica was created in the year 1957 and was originally named Neue Haas Grotesk. ln the beginning, if you see the sketches. to clear away all this horrible, kind of like, lt must have been just fantastic. WebHelvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. Helvetica premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2007. of both type foundries, Stempel and Haas. Show less. Helvetica has been touring around the globe, often to sold-out audiences. The maker wanted to so something new, something different. In a million years it would never have occurred to me to do a documentary on a type font. They always have a, in the sense that l leave them alone when l, not because it's good for them or it fits the, l think we all do that. ln my case l never learned all the things l, l'd say, ''What's the big deal? Those are the people, you know, putting their wires into our heads. Helvetica is a typeface that originates from Switzerland. A whole documentary about one typeface. 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. Of Course Not. Helveticahad its World Premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2007. It is just something we don't notice usually but we would miss very much if it wouldn't be there. Helvetica hasn't got *any* of that. Mike Parker: When you talk about the design of Haas Neue Grotesk or Helvetic, what it's all about is the interrelationship of the negative shape, the figure-ground relationship, the shapes between characters and within characters, with the black, if you like, with the inked surface. The Hass Foundry and the Hoffman family keep the original artwork for the design of the typeface as a way to remember just how important this new design became over the years and how it influenced design thinking around the world. I just love, I just like looking at type. Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, girls' bottoms. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. 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. Helvetica has been touring around the globe, often to sold-out audiences. Is Helvetica the greatest font every designed? the more you appreciate it when it's terrific. A documentary about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture. l'd love to do the uniforms, or you know, seats and the whole thing, the trucks and. Miedinger and Hoffmann set out to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. Q: David, you werent a newcomer to Helvetica, The widespread use of the Helvetica Typoface is so noticeable that it takes an important place in design history. Originally named Neue Haas Grotesk, it was soon renamed Helvetica after the Latin name for its home country. Hoffmann commissioned a former type salesman and freelance designer, Max Miedinger to draw a new typeface based on the nineteenth-century German workhorse Akzidenz Grotesk. about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); WatchDocumentaries.com | Games | Quizzes | Contact |Privacy & Terms | Manage Cookies |Advertise | DMCA. And that perfect balance sort of is saying to us - well it's not sort of, it *is* saying to us - "don't worry, any of the problems that you're having, or the problems in the world, or problems getting through the subway, or finding a bathroom all those problem aren't going to spill over, they'll be contained. If you say to yourself, "80 minutes about a typeface?" | The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. . If that is your idea of a good time, you'll love this. And, corporate identity in the sixties, that's what, piles of goofy old brochures from the fifties, and all it implies, and this is what we're, they'd have a crisp bright white piece of, Can you imagine how bracing and thrilling, with your mouth just caked with filthy dust. 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. Where and how to watch the Helvetica documentary But there's one you probably see more than any other one, and that's Helvetica. And in turn Stempel was also controlled by. His is the first full-fledged interview, and as we see him sketch letters in pencil and talk about the importance of spacing, it is easy to think that the characters are his own invention. Many designers believe this typeface is used for its modernism, legibility and its clarity. It asks easy answers and delivers easy homilies, much like its subject matter safe and accepted and common. Undoubtedly. 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. 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 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. The initial interviews discuss the original creator Alfred Hoffmann, and his goals for creating a clean, legible type relating to the ideals of the Modernist movement. 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. . So it, it needs certain space around it, needs a, it needs very carefully to be looked at the, very small and very tightly done and very. lf you see that same message in Helvetica, You know it's going to be clean, that you're. A diatribe (by some) about a font seen . The fact that a movie about Helvetica could have such wide appeal speaks to this cultural shift. 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. . But my father said, lf ever l have an idea of. Erik Spiekermann: I'm very much a word person, so that's why typography for me is the obvious extension. Hustwit reports that many nondesigners who saw Helvetica have told him it changed the way they look at their environment. Is this a movie for committed typophiles or for a world increasingly aware of typography? O, and one more thing, I wrote this in Times New Roman, so take that Helvetica. 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. WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Because it's there, it's on every street corner, so let's eat crap because it's on the corner. Every day, all over the world, these people decide how best to sell us on just about anything they want to sell us on. Developed by the Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas Type Foundry) of Mnchenstein, Switzerland, its release was planned to match a trend: a resurgence of interest in turn-of-the-century "grotesque" sans-serifs among European graphic designers, that also saw the release of Univers by Adrian Frutiger the same year. 13 minute read. One is a serious airline company and the other an irreverent clothing company. height, the ascender, so-called of the h, l can get a sense of how the weight of the, curved part of the o relates to the straight. . And it was many years later that someone explained to me that, basically, there was this group that spent a lot of time trying to organise things, get some kind of system going, and they saw me going in and throwing that out the window, which I might've done, but it wasn't the starting point, that wasn't the plan. 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. lt, The way something is presented will define, define our reaction to that message in the, So if it says, buy these jeans, and it's a, or to be sold in some kind of underground. . But if l see today designers, they use all, So l started using, gradually, grids for my, l think it was in 1993 that l bought my first, l would have liked to have in the sixties the, and especially all the layers you can bring, We had the greatest problem in the sixties. between characters just hold the letters. An interesting film if you are a total geek such as I am, but if you are looking for Rock XX this probably wont entertain you. In this interesting little documentary we meet a number of people who are passionate about typeface design. 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. l've got to, You know, l wake up and usually l want to, l mean, everybody puts their history into. 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. Helvetica: A Documentary, A History, An Anthropology. How could a film about a font be so good? He aptly named the film HELVETICA. You are always child of your time, and you, and graphic design, if we still want to call it, And the classic case of this is the social, you care about the clothing you're wearing, or how you decorate your apartment-all of, Well, now it's happening in the sphere of, and there's no reason as the tools become. Jonathan Hoefler: And it's hard to evaluate it. you know, it's just there. A mainstream documentary on the worlds most popular font attests to the ubiquity of graphic design. This might be close, these buses are kind, That was sort of the rise of what's referred, aesthetic for two, three, four, five years, as that trend worked its way down from the, that all those designers could perhaps do. See production, box office & company info. Michael Bierut: Everywhere you look you see typefaces. Coke. 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. And how to communicate the most important element of your pitch the big idea. They give words a certain coloring. You know, it seems like air? of a movie or play that they're watching. Directed by Gary Hustwit, it was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957 and is considered the first of the Design Trilogy by the director. Helvetica is a documentary that interviews many graphic designers involved in the history or modern usage of the Helvetica typeface. Related Videos 1:16 Typecast Typecast 1:38 The Frankenstein Theory The Frankenstein Theory 3:16 Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm Trailer Helvetica is a 2007 American independent feature-length documentary film about typography and graphic design, centered on the Helvetica typeface. Directed by Gary Hustwit, it was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957 and is considered the first of the Design Trilogy by the director. Any Questions? Switzerland use the font as its hallmark for example, This effort at motion graphics rings false against the confident camera work and relaxed editing (by Shelby Siegel). and descenders and all that kind of thing. Watch Helvetica here. Copyright 2023 Independent Television Service, Inc. Well send you funding deadlines, events, and film news. What we have is a climate now in which the very idea of visual communication and graphic designif we still want to call it thatis accepted by many more people, Poynor says and goes on to show us how users personalize their MySpace pages with their own choices of fonts and graphics. Typography is really white. There's no choice. So, in other words, this would be "the Swiss typeface". What they do is more than just logos and corporate branding - they design the type that we read every day in newspapers and magazines, onscreen and on television. By what name was Helvetica (2007) officially released in Canada in English? Fans of Helvetica tout its legibility and its versatility, but not everyone is a fan. What is bad taste ubiquitous? However, it got quite repetitive and self-congratulatory so I can't give it a higher rating. 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. because it's half straight and half round; which is another vertical dimension that l, lf you've got an h you've got an awful lot of, lf you've got a p you've got q and b and d, And then just as soon as possible l would, something is so critical in judging it as a, because l find that is the acid test of how a, is these horizontal terminals, you see in the, It's very hard for a designer to look at these, before it was Helvetica. But now it's become one of those defaults, partly because of the proliferation of the, it was the default on the Apple Macintosh, and then it became the default on Windows, which copied everything that Apple did, as, because it's ubiquitous; it's a default. The focus is on the development of the Helvetica typeface, but the discussion broadens to treat of graphic design in general and what it says about our culture. (We think typography is black and white, he says. Quotes.net. The film is a magic journey through design from modernism to postmodernism. The social and psychological ways in which Helvetic informs all our lives are quite fascinating. l've done other people's wedding invites. Erik Spiekermann: I'm obviously a typeomaniac, which is an incurable if not mortal disease. And it's hard to get your head around, it's that big.
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