I saw Helvetica, the film last night with some like-minded typography wonks from The Guardian, and can say that it’s entertaining, informative, revealing and suprisingly funny.
The film starts with a typesetter arranging metal letters, and goes on to tell the story of how Helvetica originated, how it got its name, and how it came to be used so ubiquitously. It’s expansive, too, and also give insights into the typography design process, and the very philosophy behind type and visual design and communication.
The most interesting aspect of the film is how passionate all the interviewees are. The great and good of the design community are all present – Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf. Vignelli adores it and speaks bitterly of “the disease of post-modernism”. Michael Bierut coughs up a hilarious distribe about how corporations from the chintzy 50’s would crawl across a dry, dusty desert to get a new design featuring Helvetica as if it was a long, cool glass of icy water. His “It’s Helvetica. Period. Any questions? Of course not” had people rolling in the aisles. Spiekermann compares using it to eating crap at McDonalds “just because it is there”.
The DVD, out November 6th, is apparently twice as long. Watching the enthusiasm of the designers here, not just for Helvetica but for their work in general and the history of their profession, I’m not surprised theyre is so much good footage. I’m looking forward to it.
And my view? I find Helvetica perfectly unambiguous, the ultimate signpost typeface. It is capable of imparting the minimum required information without enhancing or colouring the message. It does not impose itself upon the information it delivers. Corporate America loves it – used in small amounts in logos and posters it provides a solid, reliable standard. Used in larger quantities, however, either contained within one design or as a result of widespread use, and it loses strength through the very thing that provides its modernist power – pure, balanced, standardized anonymity.