Helvetica is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit.
Swiss typeface developed in 1957. What you are reading right now is written in Helvetica.
Helvetica makes the world go round.
Typography
Design
Push and pull
Just one typeface
Imposition
Communication
Psychology
Advertising
Arbitrary
Ubiquity
Perfect
Indefinite
Absolute
Where ever you are right now, I guarantee you can find some helvetica somewhere.
street signs
billboards
government forms
keyboards
bathroom signs
You're looking at it right now
"Pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. I mean you can't imagine anything moving; it is so firm. It not a letter that bent to shape; it's a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space."
"The sort of classical modernist line on how aware a reader should be of a typeface is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all."
"And it's hard to evaluate it. It's like being asked what you think about off-white paint. It's just... it's just there. And it's hard to get your head around, it's that big."
More then half of a century later, its still like air....
Watch this documentary!
