Helvetica, the movie
Went to a screening of Helvetica, a documentary by Gary Hustwit.
I’m not sure if I’ll be using Helvetica any time soon, but the interviews with Helvetica fanatics and critics were fantastic and it gave me a renewed love for design.
Here’s what I learned. Helvetica (the typeface) is everywhere, it’s soulless, it’s neutral, it’s the mother tongue, it’s responsible for the Vietnam war, it’s your friend, it’s the corporation, it’s the air, it’s about the figure and the ground, it’s ubiquitous, it’ll bore the shit out of you.
i’ve been wanting to watch this. was it boring?
It’s a movie about a typeface - how can you go wrong!
I didn’t find it boring at all. We were crammed into a room full of students and craning our necks to see the screen - so felt like some of the interviews were a tad long.
I think that non-typofiles would enjoy it. The people interviewed were pretty entertaining.
are you pro-kerning or anti-kerning?
There was an article in the NYT a few months ago about redesigning the type face on highway signs. I had no idea it was as complicated as it is.