Helvetica: I loved this movie. Another little-known documentary, and quite a niche work at that. This is an homage to the ubiquitous font, ye olde Helvetica. The doc is mainly for the graphic design set, but anyone who is interested in words, fonts, or just good design in general will find it fascinating. It starts with showing how the font is used everywhere (seriously...EVERYWHERE), and how it was a refreshing change in the advertising world in the sixties from the old messy script styles used in cheesy ads back in the day. I remember ads from the seventies using a nice helvetica and a period for emphasis. Like:
The new Volkswagen Rabbit.
Hop to it.
Or something to that effect....except that example has to be in Arial, the shitty Microsoft bastardization of the real deal. I fucking hate Microsoft. So...anyway...the film goes on to follow the inevitable backlash against the type - it is used by American Airlines and other large, evil corporations, hence it is bad. The font stands for all that is wrong with the world, and must be destroyed. And here come the saviors! The 90's grunge designers who use dirty, diffused and chaotic lettering for everything...until the backlash experiences its own backlash, and the new millennium is dedicated to honoring the font, wallowing in the 'retro-ness' of it all, and finding it cute and anti-establishment yet again. Confused? Yeah, me too. At any rate, I love the font, and loved the doc.
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