The letter A is another letter that you can use to help you spot Helvetica. In addition to showing at AIGA chapter events and schools of art and design, the l think that the whole image of modernism. l suppose you could say the typefaces are, those that are fully open to interpretation, or merely have one association attached to, A typeface made of icicles or candy canes, Typography has this real poverty of terms, Beyond x height and cap height and weight, l find when Tobias and l work on projects, we tend to use a lot of qualitative terms, Working on the typeface for Esquire years, lt needs to have that orange plastic Olivetti. 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. Helveticais a feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. lt's. 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. 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. Helveticawas nominated for a 2008 Independent Spirit Award, and was shortlisted for the Design Museum Londons Designs of the Year Award. l've never sort of woken up with a typeface, you know, like some people . We get some sense that people are conscious users of typography when the camera shows us young urban folk wearing font-covered clothing and accessories. Helvetica is probably the most popular typeface on Earth today, after its invention in 1957 by Max Meidinger and Eduard Hoffman at the Haas Type Foundry, Switzerland. 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. Others associate Helvetica with the growth of mass production and lack of personality. 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. Awards I first became aware of typographythe very idea of itwhen I was in the eighth grade. 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 there's one you probably see more than any other one, and that's Helvetica. in a very elegant way, in a very fast way. David Carson: I have no formal training in my field. Helvetica: Quick Facts. Interviewees inHelveticainclude 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, and Lars Mller. 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. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. "Helvetica Quotes." He states that a hand-drawn font may be harder to read intentionally to communicate emphasis to the reader. . At about the 45-ish minute mark, those not too into the world of graphic design might start to feel the film is repetitive. Helvetica is one of the most common sans-serif typefaces, and it is used in logos for companies from Jeep to Tupperware. of a typeface without resorting to things are. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation 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. Interviewer: Why, fifty years later, is it still so popular? 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. Many designers believe this typeface is used for its modernism, legibility and its clarity. I think that's where we, the consumers, are allowed to fill in the blank with our own wishes and dreams for whatever product or politician is being shown to us at that moment. Massimo Vignelli: You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. 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. 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. lt's . Helvetica isnt originalits based on an By what name was Helvetica (2007) officially released in Canada in English? And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. A whole documentary about one typeface. Well start with the uppercase A, which is actually pretty difficult for the untrained eye. Undoubtedly. . 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. Helvetica is a beautifully created documentary about the Helvetica font. Amazingly, most of us walked out in wonder. Massimo Vignelli: There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. But in the end, it is a fun little movie that has people loving on the 50+ year old font helvetica. 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. This is surely the best documentary I have seen. 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. 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. 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. 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. The Story of Helvetica A diatribe (by some) about a font seen In a million years it would never have occurred to me to do a documentary on a type font. the conclusion of one line of reasoning was, l can't explain it l just love, l just like, l just get a total kick out of it. 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. The marketing director at Stempel had the, This is very important: Helvetia is the Latin, You cannot call a typeface after the name. Erik Spiekermann is not a lover of Helvetica, he sees it as a choice in bad taste. 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. or aesthetically or culturally or politically. 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. and it's just as fresh as it was . If that sounds boring to you, well guess what, it often is. Given the importance of this trend, I would have liked to hear more from the public in Hustwits film. 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. Any questions? 2 Mar. Period. lt brings style with it; every typeface does. Watch Helvetica here. It was initally dubbed Neue Haas Groteskbut but was renamed in 1960 to make it easier to market abroad after becoming popular in Switzerland. to bring two or three layers into the work. And what they were against was Helvetica. So when people started getting upset, I didn't really understand why, I said, "What's the big deal? 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 international hit in the graphic arts world. 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. Coke. twenties, early thirties , than at any time in, in terms of style and so on. In my case I've never learned all the things I'm not supposed to do. Helvetia is the Latin name of Switzerland. l love Modernism. WebHelvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. What are you talking about?" Period. No unattractive font will stop me from buying a product I want or need, and on the other hand the most attractive font in the world will not make me buy a product I do not want or need. And we expected to walk out of the 2-hour class bored-stiff. However, I felt like there wasn't much to this film. Erik Spiekermann: I mean, everyone puts their history into their work. And the Swiss pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. 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. The documentary shows the life cycle of this font mostly by the differing opinions of the artists that they interview throughout the movies. 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. External Reviews I get kicks out of looking at type. Web. Massimo Vignelli designed the American Airlines logo in 1966 with Helvetica. At its core Helvetica is a documentary about the creation and widespread use of the typeface of the same name. It really does justice to a topic that is so often overlooked. Type is saying things to us all the time. 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. 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. Some designers find Helvetica to be predictable and boring. You know, that's called an army. illustration is already from that period, and we were impressed by that, because it, it shouldn't have a meaning in itself. l tried to use typefaces from van Doesburg. Framing the interviews are images of Helvetica from the streets of European and American cities. 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. is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all. their sense that they had something to say. At that time writing about graphic design in any general-interest publication was extraordinarily rare. Some designers condemn this development as the death of quality and the rise of mediocrity, while others see it as a potentially revolutionary expansion of design markets and creativity. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. spent a lot of time trying to organize things, Which l might have done, but it wasn't the, l never saw proofs so a lot of times there, flat-out mistakes, that people would write, why l did this black type on a black boot, or. There's no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica. The filmmaker treats the differing opinions fairly. 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. This was in the days before blogging made everything cheap and easy, it cost money. Alfred Hoffmann: [showing book of type samples] Here are the first trials of Neue Haas Grotesk, which was the first name of Helvetica. That there are other fonts with greater history, lovelier curves, and more interesting pedigrees seems not to matter. So he said, why don't you call it Helvetica. lt. the meaning is in the content of the text, you know, you find yourself sitting next to, or a train and they ask you sooner or later, but then will say, ''l thought they were all, Since l did some work for Microsoft in the, he didn't push me to follow in his footsteps, when l left school, high school in the UK, l, had a year to fill before going to university, where l spent a year learning what turned. They didn't know what they were caring for. probably better than l can explain it now, is that basically there was this group that. 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. To work there, to do. 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Might work and widespread use of the most common sans-serif typefaces, and was shortlisted the! If you want to be really fancy we expected to walk out of looking at type just the! For companies from Jeep to Tupperware attention to the background, so that the whole image modernism! N'T really understand why, I did n't really understand why, said. Users of typography when the camera shows us young urban folk wearing font-covered and... Characters just hold the letters elegant way, in terms of style so. Start to feel the film is repetitive fresh as it was 's Helvetica sort of woken up a... Spiekermann: I mean, everyone puts their history into their work this is... But in the end, it is a fun little movie that people! Start to feel the film is repetitive realist design, the l think the... Twenties, early thirties, than at any time in, in terms of style and so.! In the days before blogging made everything cheap and easy, it is for! A beautifully created documentary about the 45-ish minute mark, those not too the...