Helvetica, the font, the documentary and the state of mind

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Helvetica DVD box cover art

I watched Helvetica last night on DVD. It’s a fascinating documentary that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the almost ubiquitous typeface and explores its cultural significance. It may sound like a bore, but the film shows how amazingly widespread the font is. As one of the interviewees says it’s like the air – it’s just everywhere. (Film website.)

Here’s a clip featuring Dutch designer Wim Crouwel, an early enthusiast for the font.

The film starts off by describing how the font was created and how it came as a breath of fresh air in the fifties, simplifying design and creating a sort of democratic soft/hard font that was both reassuringly clear and comfortingly neutral.

But then the narrative pulls a switcheroo. The filmmakers interview designers who were part of a backlash against Helvetica and all that it stands for. The proponents of grunge fonts and the designer who used Zapf Dingbats for the body text of an article he thought was too boring to be readable join forces with a designer who thinks that Helvetica is the font that supported the Vietnam war.

And here’s Neville Brody and Rick Poyner on how to choose typefaces.

I remember the excitement of discovering fonts on my Mac Plus back in the early 90s. For a long time, the ability to print out professional-looking designs and proposals was a competitive advantage for my business. I had a Mac, PageMaker and a LaserPrinter at college – when I designed and sold my first games. At the time, I don’t think many of my publishers had kit that was so good. Later, I bought a Canon colour inkjet printer (it cost thousands!) and I could produce very high quality colour proposals for my games. That printer (and the software, fonts and computer behind it) built my first business. I often wonder whether I’ll find any other technology that will have the same impact on me personally. I think we’re all much too technologically-minded now for anything like this to remain a niche product for long.

But it had never occurred to me that a font could be so rich in history or deep in controversy. Or have such an impact on the world. This documentary is delightful and eye-opening. It’s made me think very hard about the fonts I use at work and what they say about me and my business.

Here are a couple of previous articles on this site about typefaces: What font do you write in?, and the Interesting links (See What’s the right font?)

PS Apologies for the double posting. I’m still working out the kinks involved in getting video into posts.

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