A film more for the designer or artist than for the average movie-goer, Helvetica seems to float by until the viewer realizes that the various faces and opinions that the movie features are so completely subjective that the film never anchors itself and feels like a stream of talking heads.That isn't saying much, for the topic is as nebulous and fuzzy as trying to describe the color blue might be. The Helvetica font was born in the fifties and immediately impressed designers, craftsmen, typesetters, and artists with its simplicity and overall allure. As the film progresses the viewer may feel that he is being seduced into believing some subversive things, and this may be the filmmakers overall intention.The impetus for this intriguing documentary may be the number of award-winning ads that appeared in 2007 featuring the Helvetica font. One particular item is Massimo Vignelli's design for the New York City Subway map, which not only features the attractive Helvetica font, but also manages to reduce the craggy map of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the snaking underground train lines into smooth helveticized images.Interviews in the film with Massimo Vignelli feature a cheerful self-satisfied man who seems on the constant verge of a chuckle as he talks about the indescribable allure of shapes and the feeling one gets from the Helvetica font. The man seems perfectly convinced of the belief in what he says like: "You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work." Director / Producer Gary Hustwit made the documentary in 2007 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the font, and besides just making a film that wallows in the touchy-feely stuff that the aesthete deals with, he basically imparts a bombardment of the Helvetica font on the screen to let the viewer see how pervasive it has become, and also to suggest that the font itself may carry some subversive suggestion that possibly world peace is imaginable, and thus attainable.This may sound like a tall tale but when some of the artists intone their love of the font just "because" it feels right to them, the viewer isn't left with a whole lot of objective stuff to support sticking with the movie. In fact your eyes may begin to gloss over without some overriding point to move toward, but you will be massaged visually.Even though the majority of the film feels like a fluffy valentine to an innocuous subject (I wonder how many people really gush so over a font!), it is quite an engaging look at something that, to be useful, should seem transparent. In the eyes of most of the professionals who use Helvetica and speak glowingly about it, the font is used endlessly by everyone including pros, and amateurs alike because it has such a durable consistency and yet can be used often without becoming disengaging.Filled with examples from every corner of the world, the film may have you peering for longer periods at simple signage just for the pleasure of moving your eyes over the friendly font. Hmmm.

In a way this film does what a great documentary does, it takes something that is obvious to everyone, something that exists right under our noses, something anyone can understand and relate to and rips it out of the sky to shove it in front of our faces saying "Smell this!" Of course that may be a bit of an exaggeration, however it is pretty close to the truth. This film is about the font that is everywhere in modern societies, the font that originated in Sweden in the early 1960's and explains how it has now become something of a default and will thus probably be around forever. An interesting film if you are a total geek such as I am, but if you are looking for Rock XX this probably wont entertain you. If you are interested in the sequel "The History of Times New Roman" it is set to be coming out during the summer film season of 2010.

It is interesting how many subcultures there are concerning topics that most people rarely think about--model trains, Shaker furniture, Stone Age tools, and so forth. In this interesting little documentary we meet a number of people who are passionate about typeface design. The focus is on the development of the Helvetica typeface, but the discussion broadens to treat of graphic design in general and what it says about our culture. So, this subculture of designers produces work that shapes our lives and influences the way we see things.The film shows ample examples of how ubiquitous the Helveltica typeface has become, to the point that we more or less accept it as the default, like it has always been with us. But in truth it was designed in Switzerland in 1957 ("Helvetica" is Latin for "Switzerland"). One thing that impressed me with the interviewees is that they view their profession not just as a commercial venture but as a personal life mission. They can speak eloquently about their craft. Each type character is viewed as a work of art and to them a typeface can be appreciated as others might appreciate a Monet painting. These people can become ecstatic when describing how inter-character spacing can make words things of beauty, or ugly. One guy tells the story of how his wife was trying to describe where a store was and he says, "Oh, you mean the store with that ugly font." The general feeling is that Helvetica is pretty much the end of the line in the evolution of modern, clean, simple, easily- read typefaces. Any further developments along those lines will be nothing more than alterations of Helvetica.Of course there are those who view Helvetica as boring and pedestrian and strictly utilitarian, to be used only by those with no imagination. That view is represented by some of those interviewed. One of the more interesting parts of the film is a discussion of how companies use certain typefaces to express what they stand for. Giorgio Armani or Nieman Marcus are not likely to use Helvetica in their ads, whereas Walmart is. Although touched on briefly, I would like to have seen more examples of typefaces that pre-existed Helvetica, making a stronger case for why Helvetica has come to dominate.Almost everyone will come away from this film with a keener appreciation for typefaces and graphic design and the role they play in our lives. The final credits prove that using various Helvetica font sizes in different colors can have a most pleasing effect.

As a future architect, i felt close to many of what's depicted here. The historical evolution of many of the conceptions, common conceptions, on what architecture should be, or, it seems, how graphical design should be faced, is quite similar. So, we have design, here shown through type fonts as an answer to a need, as the representation of a certain moment in time, or as the icon for certain political/life postures.The title font is a creation of modernism, which means it works, it aims at being universal, and it's durable, visually speaking. Which doesn't mean it can't be the target of criticism. The thing for me is, the human nature doesn't allow human beings to rest the same. That's because the human mind is creative. At the same time, men like formulas. Men like to be told what's right, they like to rely. And in fact, except for a very reduced number of artists who have/had the genius to produce work generated in some outer reality, something Plato would talk about, the vast majority of mortals need references, need formulas (even if they fight them), need restrictions, as someone said in the documentary. So, to Helvetica i could add many formula items, the modernist 'boxes' of Bauhaus, the transparent spaces of Mies, these were all creations springing from creative minds, and fully adopted massively, either with fantastic results, or gradually loosing interest, context, and quality. In the end, i think everybody is, to a certain degree, conservative and radical, conformist and revolutionary, Helvetica or Script, Gropius or Gaudi. It is in the oscillation between these extremes that human creativity works, and in the conflicts which exist within that evolution. So who are you? What chances are you willing to take? how new are you willing to be. If you were(are) American, who would you vote? Obama or Clinton? The idea behind what's depicted in this film, is that the choices you make define who you are. But there's a catch. We're talking about the choices you make over the creations of others. People claim Helvetica to be part of themselves as it is part of American Airlines. And a window is opened in the end of this.The fact that today, the technological democracy allows you to have much larger power of communication and personalization of your "identity cards". I personally don't think that technology stimulates creativity, it increases your options, yes, but that just gives you a larger catalogs of "fonts". Your power to innovate is the same, with or without computers. And i even think the fantastic timings you get while working with computers may kill your creative process, because you may rush yourself into things you'll feel are not the right options, only when it's to late to change them. But it's fantastic that people are allowed to produce a feature film out of a cell phone, or get to know all things done in a certain area with very little money. It'll take a few years for us to understand what important work can be created with all the possibilities we have today. I'm skeptical, but i also tender the possibilities, and think about what i can do with them. And it really is exciting to be alive and able to participate in the process. Writing in Helvetica or by hand...My opinion: 4/5 watch this.http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com