Sunday 4 January 2009

'Helvetica' A documentary film by Gary Hustwit

A friend told me about this film 'Helvetica' about a year ago. He thought I would really enjoy the film and suggested I take a look at it some time. I almost forgot all about it until this evening when I came across it in the university library. I checked it out and found it a good source of information regarding my studies at the moment. I have been reading about typography, its uses and a bit of the history of type itself.   

I enjoyed hearing from both sides of the spectrum of people who rebelled against using Helvetica at all to those who won't use any other type than Helvetica.

Helvetica IS the most used typeface. In the film many graphic and typography designers were interviewed about the Helvetica font and how they viewed it. Either people loved it like Micheal C. Place, a London designer or simply hated it as Erik Spiekermann, creator of Meta typeface in 1991. Either way they all agreed that Helvetica is like air, the wind..It is everywhere.

One man, Lars Muller said, "Helvetica is like the perfume of the city, people really don't notice it is there, but miss it if it was gone."

I really enjoyed this film and recommend it to anyone interested in type, design or even history for that matter.

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