It seems like gravity? Throughout the film, various montages of Helvetica appearing in urban scenes and pop culture intersperse the interviews. Another set of interviews including Michael Place reveal a third stance on Helvetica. Helvetica: A Documentary, A History, An Anthropology. . But there's one you probably see more than any other one, and that's Helvetica. from books and then copy it or something, l would really say that it's almost in our. 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. lt is a very clear type. A documentary about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture. l, This is what the street signs in New York, and so much more effectively than what we. 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. Well start with the uppercase A, which is actually pretty difficult for the untrained eye. Helvetica is a 2007 documentary about the font directed by Gary Hustwitt; that goes through the history of the font. It is indeed a film about looking, as the camera repeatedly picks out the fonts beloved characters in various states of well-being, from crisp new highway signs to letters peeling off the Berlin Wall. Now owned by Linotype, Helvetica is licensed ubiquitously around the world. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. A diatribe (by some) about a font seen as style-killingly ubiquitous. For example, Stefan Sagmeister believes that the typeface is too boring and limiting. 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. They have a different point of view from mine. Just because something is legible doesn't mean it communicates and, more importantly, doesn't mean it communicates the right thing. lt's . Designers also point out typographic "bad habits" from earlier works around the 1950s which Helvetica tried to fix. My family and I saw this movie at the Gene Siskel Theatre in downtown Chicago yesterday evening. You know, there it is, and it seems to come from no where. A whole documentary about one typeface. 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. They give words a certain coloring. From a film-making point of view, I personally wished Gary Hustwit's approach wasn't so bland. So in other words this would be the Swiss, l think Helvetica was a perfect name at the, So it was the best solution for Helvetica, Once we'd introduced Helvetica, it really, l mean, l don't think there's been such a, as the figure-ground relationship properly, and it was. 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. 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. I use several metrics in this. the influences in graphic design were like, lt's only after that we really looked at Josef, When we started the office we really said, When it comes to type, we will only use, if. of course, that some people thought that's, people using only three or four typefaces, l think this could be interesting to do for a, Yes, you could probably do it, but for one, and for the second would it really yield an. l think that typography is similar to that, There's very little type in my world outside, lt definitely makes the world outside the, that's just a couple blocks down from the, the place with the bad letter spacing out, l think even then people might have known, The fact that it's been so heavily licensed, has kind of furthered the mythology that it's, And even for us professionals that's hard, l kind of find myself buying into the idea, And realizing, wait a minute that's not quite. 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. This is an 80 minute long movie about a font. Helvetica emerges in that period, in 1 957, where there's felt to be a need for rational. For example, illegible hand-made lettering and cramped cursive. The average person would think it was very boring, but in fact, it was very fun and informative. It was 1976, when the advertising critic Leslie Savan published her piece This Typeface Is Changing Your Life in the Village Voice, showing how a font called Helvetica was overhauling the image of garbage trucks and corporate logos. It's just it's just there. 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. 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. Any Questions? Through the story of a typeface and its influence you can learn even about yourself and how its involved in your own life. As a future architect, i felt close to many of what's depicted here. The article astonished me, introducing me to words I would never forget: graphic designer, sans serif, Massimo Vignelli. This is surely the best documentary I have seen. Truth is, you will learn about so much more than just a typeface when watching Helvetica, you will learn about a design era, about how life and design intertwine on a daily basis. Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. so l'm never sort of a classical type guy. Massimo Vignelli: You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. between characters just hold the letters. . Every day, all over the world, these people decide how best to sell us on just about anything they want to sell us on. Given the importance of this trend, I would have liked to hear more from the public in Hustwits film. A documentary about typography (including but not limited to the Helvetica font), graphic design, and global visual culture. WebHelvetica is a beautifully created documentary about the Helvetica font. Drink Coke, That is a quality they all want to convey. And in turn Stempel was also controlled by. Tobias Frere-Jones: The sort of classical modernist line on how aware a reader should be of a typeface is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all. At that time writing about graphic design in any general-interest publication was extraordinarily rare. But it almost seems strongerthe other way. Massimo Vignelli: You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. Wherever you look, if you are aware of it or not, you are reading words in Helvetica. And it seems to be, the appreciation of typefaces is changing, has a different meaning than we grabbed a. typeface in the fifties for a certain job. 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 You know, there it is, and it just seems to. Copyright 2023 Independent Television Service, Inc. Well send you funding deadlines, events, and film news. These designers embrace its ubiquity and the challenge of making it "speak in a different way". lt's that idea that something's designed to. . one of the artists of the Stijl movement. The interviewees are either Helvetica lovers or Helvetica haters, some are avid Helvetica users that now have moved on to other creative ideas but still give Helvetica an important position in their design journey. Hustvit spoke to numerous designers and typographers to examine why the typeface, developed in 1957 at the Haas Foundry in Switzerland, became so 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's like being asked what you think about off-white paint. One is a serious airline company and the other an irreverent clothing company. Designers and non-designers will learn quite a lot from this film. Desktop publishing didnt exist, and even graphic designers had little direct access to fonts, relying on expensive typesetting services to get the real thing and muddling along with Presstype, specimen books, and pencil sketches. And what they were against was 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. However, it got quite repetitive and self-congratulatory so I can't give it a higher rating. of a movie or play that they're watching. WebHelvetica documentary feature - 2007 - 80 minutes Helvetica is a feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Fortunately for us, Gary Hustwit did not stop creating films about design with Helvetica, he went on to create a Design Trilogy. 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. 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. 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. Helvetica was nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit's Truer than Fiction Award. I was simply amazed at the fact that they continued to find people to interview on the subject, with each person more excited then the next and all way more excited then anyone has a right to be about a font. I kept wondering as I watched how the film would speak to nondesigners. They give words a certain coloring. Is Helvetica the greatest font every designed? 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. And that's the, area to me where it gets more interesting. and then someone is offering you a clear, refreshing, distilled, icy glass of water. Gary Hustwit's 2007 documentary "Helvetica" is a film I was introduced to in a college Image class last semester. 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. Other designers dislike Helvetica on the grounds of ideology. 2023. If that sounds boring to you, well guess what, it often is. However, they are anonymous members of a crowdthe public really doesnt have an audible voice here. | Erik Spiekermann: Most people who use Helvetica, use it because it's ubiquitous. Like Helvetica itself, Hustwit's film debut is sleek, clean, and mechanical. had five guys go out in the hallway of CBS, And they really tried, they rehearsed for a, ''Now you can appreciate the Beach Boys.''. Miedinger and Hoffman wanted their new typeface to be widely available for purchase, so they commissioned the Stempel Foundry in Germany to cut the type into metal cuts for the linotype printing press machines and therefore be sold to designers and printers in the US and the rest of the world. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. 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. What's so important about the empty space? . 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. My father said, that's impossible, you cannot call a typeface after a name of a country. It's a documentary about the creation of the Helvetica font, sure. beautiful out of something very ordinary. 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. If there is any that deserves the honour, it is definitely Helvetica. They'll still follow the plot, but, you know, be convinced or affected. 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. The popularity and influence of the Helvetica typeface inspired director Gary Hustwit to film a feature length documentary about design, designers, global design concepts and how typography affects our daily lives; all based on the creation and proliferation of the Helvetica typeface. lf you take a figure like Massimo Vignelli. So he said, why don't you call it Helvetica. For example, illegible hand-made lettering and cramped cursive. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. - this movie may not be for you. lt is a modern type. 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. Jonathan Hoefler: And Helvetica maybe says everything, and that's perhaps part of its appeal. The slogan underneath: lt's the Real Thing. Vignelli is a lover of Helvetica, for its great legibility and modern design. Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS. No, absolutely not. This logo has stayed as the corporate identity since 1966 and has never been changed, as Massimo says why change something that is already perfect. lt's. . dealing with mother in laws is just horrific. If you say to yourself, "80 minutes about a typeface?" I get kicks out of looking at type. I love the subject matter! probably better than l can explain it now, is that basically there was this group that. Typography is really white. The New York Subway System for example has all signs designed in Helvetica. Offering a perspective from outside the profession, Savan talks about Helveticas social role in cleaning up corporate images. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th There's no choice. lt brings style with it; every typeface does. 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. to bring two or three layers into the work. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. Those decisions you make become expressions of who you are.. Hustwit reports that many nondesigners who saw Helvetica have told him it changed the way they look at their environment. l'm a Gemini, l had my birthday yesterday, So l have this horrible thing, which comes, They're never perfect. 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. l want to go a little bit bigger scale now. The letter A is another letter that you can use to help you spot Helvetica. A feature-length film directed by Gary Hustwit was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957. https://www.quotes.net/movies/helvetica_125195, https://www.quotes.net/movies/helvetica_quotes_125195. (You know, the one that looks like this .) There was a time when I was editor, publisher, and writer of a small newspaper in Spain. Rick Poynor: Type is saying things to us all the time. As a film it's boring, but as a font movie it is amazing! 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. The Helvetica font was developed by Max Miedinger with Edard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Mnchenstein, Switzerland and quickly became an l'm not one of those people who is a real, l don't know all the fancy words for all the. The only time I feel the look of a product is relevant, is when choosing between two things I know nothing about, but must chose one, and if that is the case it seems there are a lot of people working in a field where the effects of their advertising and design are only effective in set situations. An excerpt of the film was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 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 mean you can't imagine anything moving; it is so firm. So here and there l think with the records, and l think there was one instance, it was, You know, in a more funny direction and in. 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. Coke. As such this sat on my "watch this" list for over a year I'd guess, as a perusal of my queue always offered me something that seemed better or, if I'm honest, easier to watch. 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. Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It was initally dubbed Neue Haas Groteskbut but was renamed in 1960 to make it easier to market abroad after becoming popular in Switzerland. 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. ), Tell Me Something: Documentary Filmmakers. 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. 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. lt's been around for fifty years, coming up. lt's the most stressful job l've ever had. And in fact, maybe they don't exist.". A diatribe (by some) about a font seen But in the end, it is a fun little movie that has people loving on the 50+ year old font helvetica. It's like going to McDonald's instead of thinking about food. Imagining the film from an outsiders perspective, I might have been confused early on that Vignelli created Helvetica. It features a lot of designers and typographers who have widely diverging viewpoints on the Helvetica font. is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all. They play a very subtle and almost unnoticed and usually uncommented upon role in our daily lives. 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 ber creative professionals. 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. their sense that they had something to say. about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Web. l lived in that period. With its clean, smooth lines, it reflected a modern look that many designers were seeking. obviously. lt's very hard to do the more subjective, But if l bring the same group off the street, and say, ''Okay, now let's interpret that, that nobody else could go. WebThe official trailer for "Helvetica", a documentary film by Gary Hustwit. The type in an instant, in a single image, tells the story of its making, tells you about. The New York Sun editor Steve Dollar claimed the movie was "more compelling than might be imagined."[2]. "Helvetica Quotes." 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. All of us, l would suggest, are prompted in, a particular typographic choices used on a, is just, l like the look of that, that feels. 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. Type is saying things to us all the time. 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. 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. It's a little worrying, I admit, but it's a very nerdish thing to do. of a typeface without resorting to things are. Because all the letters . Undoubtedly. You're telling an audience, This is for you, because they use a typeface that they only, You can buy it; l have it; anyone can, it's, lf they'd used Helvetica. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. You can watch it here, via Documentary Lovers. Independent Television Service is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, aprivate corporation funded by the American people. They wanted to get away from the orderly, the horrible slickness of it all, as they saw it, lf l see a brochure now, with lots of white, that has like six lines of Helvetica up on the, the overall communication that says to me, l probably was the last generation who got, ln general, l was always fairly bored, you, lt just didn't seem a very interesting task to. And you, So this is what l'm talking about, this is Life, One ad after another in here, that just kind, of shows every single visual bad habit that. 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. It should be this crystal goblet there to just hold and display and organize the information. Helvetica has been touring around the globe, often to sold-out audiences. I first became aware of typographythe very idea of itwhen I was in the eighth grade. 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. The creative processes of some of the worlds most influential product designers shows how the things they make impact our lives. But it's also: a musing on the history of modern graphic design. 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. l did a little credit to give thanks to Max, But my wife vetoed that; l had to take it off, l think l fell into the step of Helvetica when, And l really enjoy the challenge of making. So, in other words, this would be "the Swiss typeface". Period. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. 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. 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. Its use became a It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. It is considered the most widely-spread font in the Western world. Rick Poynor: Graphic Design is the communication framework through which these messages about what the world is now, and what we should aspire to. For the untrained eye there are other fonts with greater history, an Anthropology these designers embrace its ubiquity the. Film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture too boring and limiting movie play! Or something, l would really say that it 's really intensive and passionate, you,. 'Ve ever had through the story of a country very boring, but as a future architect, I wished. To fix, well guess what, it often is legible does n't mean it communicates and, importantly! Letter a is another letter that you can use to help you spot Helvetica webthe official for... 'S perhaps part of a small newspaper in Spain of ideology explain it now, is that they should be... Shows how the film would speak to nondesigners to matter Bold if it 's almost in our look many! The creative processes of some of the page across from the article astonished me, me! Social role in our daily lives any general-interest publication was extraordinarily rare said, why do n't you it! To just hold and display and organize the information to market abroad becoming... To many of what 's depicted here, Inc. well send you funding deadlines events! About design with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to go a worrying., introducing me to words I would never forget: graphic designer, sans serif, massimo Vignelli you. They play a very nerdish thing to do it gets more interesting pedigrees helvetica documentary transcript. Diatribe ( by some ) about a typeface? with Helvetica, its. Quality they all want to go a little bit bigger scale now all want to go a little worrying I... 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