I recently went to see a film called Helvetica which is about the 50th anniversary of the typeface called…you guessed it….Helvetica. It’s a face which most people have seen countless times in their lives, likely without ever noticing it. It’s actually a brilliantly-designed face – extremely legible, tidy and all around very clean shapes. It was designed in Switzerland in 1957.
I went into the movie thinking “How in the hell can anyone sit through an hour and a half long film about a font?????” Well, I stand corrected. The film was very interesting, peppered with interviews with famous graphic and type designers such as Stefan Sagmeister and David Carson. It was neat to see designers from different regions, age groups and design styles weigh in on their love or hate for Helvetica.
I am such a design geek – I get excited and inspired by things like this and walked out of the theater pumped up and eager to find a new project on which I can use Helvetica in a way that’s new and exciting. Some might say that’s a tough challenge to meet!
If you’re remotely interested in design or typography in general, I’d highly recommend the film. I think it’s coming out on DVD in October. ‘Til then, you can view the trailer for the film and find a list of screening dates and locations at: http://www.helveticafilm.com
I also got a t-shirt at the event that has Helvetica 1957-2007 and the word “Anniversary” written in Swiss-German or whatever (It says “Geburtstag”, so language experts, feel free to enlighten me!), which is super cool. They had them in different colour schemes and languages for various countries. To me, it seemed most appropriate to choose the country in which the typeface was born! 🙂
Enjoy!