Helvetica

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<title>helvetica stays in the picture | Print, June 2009</title>
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<h1>helvetica stays in the picture</h1>
Helvetica has built its reputation on blending in, but Switzerland's most
famous typographic export just got a major close-up. Helvetica, a documentary by
Gary Hustwit ( I Am trying To Break Your Heart, Moog), shows us
thousands of ways—via marketing for American Apparel, Verizon, Fendi, and
Jeep, to name just a few—where they typeface has been used to communicate in
the commerical landscape. The film places Helvetica center stage, but Hustwit's
talking-head designers emerge as the stars. Wim Crouwel, Paula Scher, Neville
Brody, and Michael Bierut (whose sardonic commentary about corporate identity
elicited belly laughs at the movie's first screening at the SXSW Film Festival in
March) are several of many who give compelling interviews. Some of them argue
that Helvetica's omnipresence is a victory for those who believe that design
should be neutral, a solution that eschews stylistic acrobatics in favor of
legibility. The film's subtext is surprisingly political: Designers in varying
camps return again and again to the fact that every creative choice can have
radical implications. Yet Helvetica succeeds because it uses the
iconic typeface as a tool to tease out a more complex matter—how they legacy
of Modernism play out in 21st-century daily life. Is design a tool for creating
order or expressing emotion? Is it for accessibility or provocation? Or is
Helvetica, as Stefan Sagmester points out, the ideal typeface when you want to
say, "Do not read me, because I will bore the shit out of you"? Those of us at
the premier recieved button reading "I hate Helvetica" and "I love Helvetica," and
more than a few people left wearing both.
<address>Dylan Siegler</address>
<h2>and the nominees are...</h2>

<dl>
<dd>You've seen the typeface, and now maybe you've watched the movie, too.
We asked a few European designers a simple question: What other typefaces are
worthy of their own film?
<address>Steven Heller</address></dd>
<dd>If you want bitter rivalry and jealousy at being usurped by Helvetica
and Univers, it would have to be Akzidenz. But for me, it's the 80-year
roller-coaster ride of Cooper Black from deco playbills to the fuselages
of Easyjet, via The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds.
<address>Michael Johnson, Johnson Banks

London, England</address></dd>
<dd>Imagine: Oliver Stone makes Avant Garde:The Movie,

starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Herb Lubalin; David Lynch does Jonathan Barnbook;
Jean-Luc Godard does the Histoire du Mistral (with text interventions
in Helvetica). I'd wathc them all.
<address>Adrian Shaugnessy, This Is Real Art
London, England</address></dd>
<dd>Univers changed the way we look at fonts. With just
minimal background [in type], one can appreciate Frutiger's innovative naming
scheme and understand the differences between version 55 and 65. This systematic
approach, combined with the visual attributes, makes it almost a cliche icon on
modernist typography.
<address>Peter Bilak, Typotheque
The Hague, Netherlands</address></dd>
<dd> As is often the case with diabolical characters, unusual suspects would
make a better movie. Otl Aicher's awkward Rotis could star in a
typographic equivalent of a German soft-porn movie with Erik Spiekermann as expert
consultant.
<address>Dejan Lrsic
Zagreb, Croatia</address></dd>
<dd>I use Helvetica like everyone else. It is a well-

conceived type that has the Bauhaus imprint, but it's bland and without
distinction. I can't imagine reading Balzac or Melville in Helvetica. I would
make a film of Galliard or Baskerville Old Face; both
have a nice design and a fine blackness
<address>Massin
Paris, France</address></dd>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.

<h1>helvetica stays in the picture</h1>

<h2>and the nominees are...</h2>

<address>Michael Johnson, Johnson Banks

<dd><p>Imagine: Oliver Stone makes <span>Avant Garde:The Movie</span>,

<dd><p>I use <span>Helvetica</span> like everyone else. It is a well-

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