Helvetica

Graphic designers talk about typefaces the way I talk about film.

To them, a typeface has a rich history, it expresses feelings and emotions, and it symbolizes simplicity, cleanliness, modernization and even conformity.

So I learned in the documentary “Helvetica,” a film that definitively proves there is a documentary for anyone, about anything.

This is a film that explores the origins and the significance of the font Helvetica, the most ubiquitous font used in ads, signage and computers for the last 50 years.

For instance, did you know that when Helvetica was introduced in the early ‘60s, it was so simple, easy to read and seemingly perfect that it shattered advertising norms of hokey magazine ads in the ‘50s with its remarkable clarity and appeal to the common man? And did you know it did this so strongly that it was both responsible for and became synonymous with the Vietnam War? And did you know that to not use it sparked a feeling of grunge rebellion and counter-culture post-modernism that shook graphic design to its core to the point that digital graphics have been forced to adapt to modern rules in conjunction with post-modern artistic theories?

There are interview subjects in this film that believe this whole-heartedly. Their lives are design, and not just design, but typefaces specifically. These people speak almost exclusively in analogies to express their almost alien fascination with letters on a page. “Graphic design is like music. It’s more about the space in between the letters in the way that music is more about the space in between the notes.” “Can you imagine what it must have felt like to see Helvetica for the first time, as though you had been crawling through the desert and then someone gave you a crisp, refreshing glass of water?”

I found the metaphors laughable, but you see there are people who think this way, and I don’t intend to judge because the vigor with which they describe graphic design reminds me of the way I may judge film history and significance. Who am I to say my passion is better?

I could make the argument that nearly all the films of the 1940s played such a large role in generating war bonds for World War II and inspiring national support for the war largely influential in our country’s history. But a political historian for instance may meet such a statement with equal disdain. This could also be true of a graphic designer that would see nothing more in it than sheer entertainment value and a love story.

Neither party is wrong (although cinema is a universally tested artistic medium established for over a century and Helvetica is not); we each just have a different perspective.

Working with graphic designers in a newsroom and knowing them in some ways to be artists first and journalists second, these are the thoughts I had while watching “Helvetica.” However, this proved to be more stimulating to me than the film itself.

See, there are a number of designers in this film that speak of how if a design is poor or even generic, it cannot inspire them to look past the visuals to the content inside. One man points to words written on a board in Helvetica and says, “that word does not say ‘sunshine,’ and where is the ‘explosion’ in that?” This is an argument that boils down to, “This is not a pipe,” but they have valid reasons for picking out those flaws.

That person may watch this film and pay no attention to the filmmaking that goes into it in the same way that I will read the word ‘sunshine’ or ‘explosion’ without any problem.

But I am a film critic, and to me the enjoyment of the film comes from more than the sum of Director Gary Hustwit’s parts.

I watched a film where the combined editing consisted of A LOT of B-roll of nothing more than text of the font Helvetica: on a street sign, on a billboard, on a magazine ad, on an album cover, on a movie poster. This is all there was, and in its display, there was no significant camera movement to stimulate my eyes, no added graphics to stimulate my mind, no narration to provide context and no creativity in the musical score to stimulate my ears.

It is also a film featuring a lot of middle aged or very old white people. Some are German, some are Swiss, some are American, a few are women, but none are black, Asian, Hispanic or perhaps even more significantly, young. More than one designer speaks of how young designers are the future for the rules of graphic design and the role Helvetica will play in that future, and Hustwit speaks to none of them.

This is a very dull film. That does not imply that the people who will enjoy it are dull or that the people who enjoy design are dull or that the people who are interviewed in this film are dull.

It means that like the typeface, “Helvetica” is very common and very simple, and although it says a lot, it can also say very little.

2 ½ stars