So I just bought this great documentary on Amazon. Options

[mipadi]

It's called Helvetica, and it's about the history of the typeface Helvetica. I prefer Helvetica Neue myself, which is why I splash it all over my website, but Helvetica is great, too. I know this documentary is amazing as well, because I've already seen it, and it was good enough for me to fork over $20 for my own copy (and even good enough for me to not pirate it, but actually give the creators some money). On the surface, it's an in-depth look at font of great historical importance, but it's much deeper than that. It's about the interplay of typography, graphic design, and art, and moreover it's about subtlety -- how even a slight change to something like a typeface (or something greater than a typeface) can make all the difference in the world.

Has anyone else seen this documentary?

[NoSex]

yeah, i've seen it. it's a pretty decent documentary with a cast of colorful characters in interview. &, of course, it's best in its social parallelism -- the idea that helvetica is a symbol of imperialism, consumerism, etc. is very provocative, very interesting.

[mipadi]

yeah, i've seen it. it's a pretty decent documentary with a cast of colorful characters in interview. &, of course, it's best in its social parallelism -- the idea that helvetica is a symbol of imperialism, consumerism, etc. is very provocative, very interesting.

Yeah, I thought it was a cool tactic how the filmmaker used the ubiquity of Helvetica to comment on society, economics, and politics, esp. in the interviews with the "Helvetica haters". I liked when he talked to the woman who went to design school during the Vietnam War, and developed an aversion to Helvetica because she saw it as a symbol of the corporations that promote and profit off of war (still as true and relevant today as it was in the late 60s/70s).

In the "liner notes" for the DVD, Gary Hustwit writes of his inspiration for the film, "I saw Helvetica everywhere, and watched how people were interacting with it but not really think about it. A city of millions of people just going about their lives, letting a typeface tell them which direction their subway train was headed, where they could park, where the bathroom was, how much to pay for a hot dog." I think this says a lot about how we interact with culture itself today.