Helvetica – the film

After months of waiting, I finally saw Gary Hustwit's Helvetica, a documentary film about Helvetica, modernist and post-modernist graphic design and the history of design after WWII seen through one typeface. The film was showing at the Wexner Center on Thursday and Friday this week. It's absolutely brilliant and I recommend it to anyone. Catch it if you can!

Film poster design by Experimental Jetset.

Helvetica features interviews with some of the world's greatest graphic designers—Massimo Vignelli, Neville Brody, Michael Bierut, Paula Scher, David Carson [I'm not a big fan of Carson's work but he's definitely a very interesting guy]— and type designers—Matthew Carter, Hermann Zapf—people who play a major role in shaping our culture but are rarely seen or heard. Hustwit alternates between shots of Helvetica, the typeface, seen absolutely everywhere, on buildings, billboards, t-shirts, posters, magazines, etc. and those interviews which trace the history of Helvetica and its impact on graphic designers and, through them, on just about everything we look at these days. It's never boring; it's in fact often pretty funny and the passion of the people Hustwit interviewed is clearly visible and captivating. The soundtrack is pretty nice too.

The film is not an apology of Helvetica and modernist aesthetics. Some of the designers in the movie actually express strong opinions against its prevalence. For me however, Helvetica is one of the most beautiful creations of mankind and Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann, whether they worked with Helvetica or not, are two of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Whatever your opinion on the subject, even if you have none, Helvetica is a rare look into a side of contemporary culture which, though often acknowledged for its power on consumer society, is often considered secondary to “high art” when it really shouldn't be.

Top left: Josef Müller-Brockmann, Musica Viva March 26, 1957 (1957; 35.375" × 50.375")
top right: Armin Hofmann, Spitzen (1969; 35.0" × 50.0")
bottom left: Armin Hofmann, Kunsterziehung in USA (1962; 35.0" × 50.0")
bottom right: Josef Müller-Brockmann, Musica Viva, January 7, 1958 (1958; 35.375" × 50.375")

Posters, none of which features Helvetica ;-), from internationalposter.com.