Helvetica (film)
Encyclopedia
Helvetica is an independent feature-length documentary film
about typography
and graphic design
, centered on the typeface of the same name
. Directed by Gary Hustwit
, it was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957 and is considered the first of the Design Trilogy
by the director.
Its content consists of a history of the typeface interspersed with candid interviews with leading graphic and type designers. The film aims to show Helvetica's beauty and ubiquity, and illuminate the personalities that are behind typefaces. It also explores the rift between modernists
and postmodernists
, with the latter expressing and explaining their criticisms of the famous typeface.
Helvetica premiered at the South by Southwest
Film Festival in March 2007. The film toured around the world for screenings in selected venues, such as the IFC Center in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
London, the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, and the Roxie Cinema
in San Francisco. Helvetica was nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit's Truer than Fiction Award
.
Bands and musicians that contributed to the documentary's soundtrack include Four Tet
, The Album Leaf
, Kim Hiorthøy
, Caribou
, Battles
, Sam Prekop
of The Sea and Cake
, and El Ten Eleven
.
An edited version of the film was broadcast in the UK on BBC One
in November 2007, as part of Alan Yentob
's Imagine series. It aired in January 2009 as part of the Independent Lens
series on PBS
in the United States.
The film was released on DVD in November 2007 by Plexifilm
.
The film was released on Blu-ray Disc
in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. The limited (1,500 copies) edition includes Gary Hustwit's autograph. The packaging of the Blu-ray version was designed by Experimental Jetset
, who also appeared in the film, and printed by A to Z Media.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about typography
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
and graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, centered on the typeface of the same name
Helvetica
Helvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
. Directed by Gary Hustwit
Gary Hustwit
Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker based in New York and London. He has produced and directed a number of documentaries including the 2007 film Helvetica.-Work:...
, it was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957 and is considered the first of the Design Trilogy
Design Trilogy
Design Trilogy is the collective name of a series of three design films directed by documentary film director Gary Hustwit. The films are:*2007: Helvetica, on the famous typeface*2009: Objectified on industrial design...
by the director.
Its content consists of a history of the typeface interspersed with candid interviews with leading graphic and type designers. The film aims to show Helvetica's beauty and ubiquity, and illuminate the personalities that are behind typefaces. It also explores the rift between modernists
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and postmodernists
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, with the latter expressing and explaining their criticisms of the famous typeface.
Helvetica premiered at the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
Film Festival in March 2007. The film toured around the world for screenings in selected venues, such as the IFC Center in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
London, the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, and the Roxie Cinema
The Roxie
The Roxie Theater is a movie theater at 3117 16th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco built in 1909. It is also known as the Roxie Cinema or just The Roxie.-History:...
in San Francisco. Helvetica was nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit's Truer than Fiction Award
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
.
Bands and musicians that contributed to the documentary's soundtrack include Four Tet
Four Tet
Kieran Hebden is a post-rock and electronic musician. Hebden first came to prominence as a member of the band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist under the moniker of Four Tet....
, The Album Leaf
The Album Leaf
The Album Leaf is an American solo musical project founded in San Diego, California in 1998 by Jimmy LaValle. He is known for his use of electronics, synthesizer and Rhodes piano...
, Kim Hiorthøy
Kim Hiorthøy
Kim Hiorthøy is a Norwegian electronic musician, graphic designer, illustrator, filmmaker and writer.-Biography:Hiorthøy was born and raised in Trondheim, Norway, and studied at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art as well as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen...
, Caribou
Caribou (musician)
Daniel Victor Snaith is a composer, musician and recording artist under stage names Caribou, Manitoba and Daphni. Under the supervision of Kevin Buzzard, he obtained a PhD in mathematics at Imperial College London.- Career:...
, Battles
Battles (band)
Battles is an American experimental rock group, founded in 2002 in New York City, comprising guitarists Ian Williams and Dave Konopka , and drummer John Stanier .-Biography:...
, Sam Prekop
Sam Prekop
Sam Prekop is a rock/pop musician in the band The Sea and Cake. He also has released three solo albums. Prekop first gained recognition in the band Shrimp Boat from 1988 to 1993. Many artists have performed in the Sam Prekop band, such as Chad Taylor, Josh Abrams, Jim O'Rourke, and Archer Prewitt...
of The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake
The Sea and Cake is an indie rock band with a pronounced jazz influence, which formed in the mid-1990s in Chicago out of the ashes of local bands The Coctails and Shrimp Boat. The group's name came from a willful reinterpretation of "The C in Cake", a song by Gastr del Sol...
, and El Ten Eleven
El Ten Eleven
El Ten Eleven is a Los Angeles, CA post-rock duo known for combining guitar/bass doubleneck or fretless bass, with heavy looping, or vamping, and the utility of an effects pedal, over acoustic or electric drumming...
.
An edited version of the film was broadcast in the UK on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in November 2007, as part of Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob
Alan Yentob is a British television executive and presenter who has worked throughout his career at the BBC.-Early life:...
's Imagine series. It aired in January 2009 as part of the Independent Lens
Independent Lens
Airing weekly on PBS through ITVS, the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens introduces new drama and documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens have been presented by hosts Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie...
series on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
in the United States.
The film was released on DVD in November 2007 by Plexifilm
Plexifilm
Plexifilm is an independent DVD label and film production company co-founded by Gary Hustwit and Sean Anderson in 2001...
.
The film was released on Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. The limited (1,500 copies) edition includes Gary Hustwit's autograph. The packaging of the Blu-ray version was designed by Experimental Jetset
Experimental jetset
Experimental Jetset is a graphic design company based in Amsterdam. It was founded by Marieke Stolk, Danny van den Dungen and Erwin Brinkers, who met when they studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Their style can be described as conceptual and minimalistic...
, who also appeared in the film, and printed by A to Z Media.
Interviewees
- Massimo VignelliMassimo VignelliMassimo Vignelli is a designer who has done work in a number of areas ranging from package design to furniture design to public signage to showroom design through Vignelli Associates, which he co-founded with his wife, Lella...
- Rick PoynorRick PoynorRick Poynor is a British writer on design, graphic design, typography and visual culture. He began as a general visual arts journalist, working on Blueprint magazine in London. After founding Eye magazine , which he edited from 1990 to 1997, he focused increasingly on visual communication...
- Wim CrouwelWim CrouwelWillem Hendrik Crouwel is a Dutch graphic designer and typographer.Between 1947 and 1949 he studied Fine Arts at Academie Minerva in Groningen, The Netherlands...
- Matthew CarterMatthew CarterMatthew Carter is a type designer. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Carter's career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type...
- Alfred Hoffmann, Eduard Hoffmann's son
- Mike Parker Linotype's typographic development director.
- Michael BierutMichael BierutMichael Bierut is a graphic designer, design critic and educator.Bierut was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning....
- Leslie Savan
- Jonathan HoeflerJonathan HoeflerJonathan Hoefler is an American typeface designer. Hoefler founded Hoefler & Frere-Jones , a type foundry in New York that Hoefler shares with fellow type designer Tobias Frere-Jones.Hoefler has designed original typefaces for Rolling Stone Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine,...
- Tobias Frere-JonesTobias Frere-JonesTobias Frere-Jones is a prolific type designer who works in New York City with fellow type designer Jonathan Hoefler at Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a type foundry in lower Manhattan...
- Erik SpiekermannErik SpiekermannErik Spiekermann is a German typographer and designer. He is a professor at the University of the Arts Bremen....
- Neville BrodyNeville BrodyNeville Brody is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director.Neville Brody is an alumnus of the London College of Printing and Hornsey College of Art, and is known for his work on The Face magazine and Arena magazine , as well as for designing record covers for artists such as...
- Lars Müller
- Paula ScherPaula ScherPaula Scher, born October 6, 1948, in Washington, DC., is an American graphic designer, illustrator, painter and art educator in design, and the first female principal at Pentagram, which she joined in 1991...
- Stefan SagmeisterStefan SagmeisterStefan Sagmeister is a New York-based graphic designer and typographer. He has his own design firm—Sagmeister Inc.—in New York City. He has designed album covers for Lou Reed, OK Go, The Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny.-Biography:Sagmeister studied graphic design at the...
- David CarsonDavid Carson (graphic designer)David Carson is an American graphic designer. He is best known for his innovative magazine design, and use of experimental typography. He was the art director for the magazine Ray Gun. Carson was perhaps the most influential graphic designer of the 1990s...
- Experimental JetsetExperimental jetsetExperimental Jetset is a graphic design company based in Amsterdam. It was founded by Marieke Stolk, Danny van den Dungen and Erwin Brinkers, who met when they studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Their style can be described as conceptual and minimalistic...
- Norm
- Michael C. Place
Critical reception
The New York Sun editor Steve Dollar claimed the odd details and vocal asides made the movie more compelling than might otherwise be imagined.Awards and nominations
In 2008, the documentary was nominated for "Truer Than Fiction Award" during the Independent Spirit AwardsIndependent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
See also
- ObjectifiedObjectifiedObjectified is a feature-length documentary film examining the role of everyday non-living objects, and the people who design them, in our daily lives. The film is directed by Gary Hustwit...
, a documentary film about industrial designIndustrial designIndustrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...
, also by Gary Hustwit. - Typeface (film)Typeface (film)Typeface is an independent documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films, about visual culture, technology and graphic design, centered around the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin...