Helvetica

          I saw the title “Helvetica” and I was really skeptical about how good a documentary could be that was just about typeface and graphic design.  I was actually quite pleasantly surprised.  By have an upbeat artful style the filmmakers were able to make this film not only interesting but kind of eye opening for me.   I can honestly say that I really haven’t paid much if any attention to fonts in the world.  There have been some instances where I have seen things that were really bad or some things that looked really cool but other than that I haven’t really thought about things in the detail that this film causes the viewer to.

            In fiction filmmaking there is a constant discussion of “world creation.”  The purpose of the filmmaker(s) is to create a “world” for the characters to reside in and for the viewer to become a part of.  This film definitely does this for me.  This film creates a world within the world that we live in.  It takes the world that everyone just accepts and goes deeper into it.  The filmmakers look into some of the more obscure/interesting occupations in the world.  The people that they interview are all some sort of graphic or font designer.  I had never really thought about where fonts came from.  I figured that they had to come from somewhere but I guess that I didn’t realize that people spent their lives designing fonts.  All of the people that they interviewed were very passionate about what they were doing and their beliefs.  I hadn’t really thought that the use of one font or another could be so controversial or multifaceted until this documentary.  There were some very strong feelings on both sides of using the Helvetica font.  There were many people interviewed that basically couldn’t praise Helvetica enough.  One man said that he has tried to figure out a way to improve the font and he can’t.  It is “perfect” he says.  On the other side, some of the interviewees hated Helvetica with a passion.  One font designer likened using Helvetica to eating junk food.  Another designer said half-jokingly that she believes that Helvetica is the reason for the Vietnam and Iraqi wars.  This intensity was completely new to me.

            This film did open my eyes into what goes into graphic designing and also font creation.  There is actually quite a lot of thought that goes into the use and creation of fonts.  These interviewees laid out many ways that fonts are used and pointed out why some would be used in one situation over another.  The film kept coming back to the fact that Helvetica is everywhere.  There were many montages of different uses of Helvetica worldwide.  They showed it on signs, logos, magazines, stamps and even the government organizations.  It was quite fascinating to see how ubiquitous the font was and then to hear from “experts” as to why that was.

            This film goes to show that if you can do it well then you can make a documentary about just about anything.  Documentaries don’t have to be intense expose activist films.  They can simply be to explore and to inform.  After I watched this film I didn’t feel like my whole life was changed but I do feel a little better informed about the world and now I can appreciate different aspects of life more.  I also have got to wondering about the history and back stories about other common elements of society.  If fonts have such a substantial history I am sure there are many other little things about the world that we could be well served to investigate.