Gary Hustwit's Helvetica: director's perspective on the typeface

Perceiving Helvetica

Gary Hustwit's film Helvetica is about the font after which the film is titled. The film is more than a simple documentary about the history and use of the font Helvetica. The film uses the example of this font as a meditation upon the extent to which an element of visual culture, such as this font has upon the world on an array of levels. Hustwit's film is in some ways what one would expect, that is to say that there is some portions of the film that typify a documentary, aesthetically and content wise. This kind of content, such as when viewers watch as a designer narrates the process of designing typeface, provides exposition and builds the context within which Hustwit's more subtle and metaphysical ideas about fonts and visual culture work well. The content shows great variation than that of a typical documentary, involving montages of visual information and sound bites from some leading minds (and hands) in the design world. The paper aims to provide some analysis of the film and to surmise as to what the director's attitude toward Helvetica is.

It is a practice of many filmmakers, especially documentarians, to choose subject matter for which they have extreme emotions towards. In other words, filmmakers often make films about subjects that they truly love, or truly hate. This kind of passion for the subject brings with it focus, attention, drive, and direction. Therefore, Hustwit must have some clear and intense emotion regarding Helvetica. From the film, one might gather that it is not exactly clear as to whether this font is the personal favorite of the director, one can detect the admiration and respect that the director has for the font as a font, as a media object, a design object, and as a cultural object. The director seems to be quite struck as to how something that made fade into the background of perception has a measurable affect upon elements of experience such as vision and culture. There are numerous examples of the font in the world over its fifty year existence (at the time the film was first released, the font Helvetica was fifty years old). There are advertisements, public signs, graphic design and other examples of where this font has lived and worked in human culture.

There were a number of featured designers and great thinkers in the film. They were dynamic, expressive, and informative. The montages were often well constructed and captivating. This viewer did experience a sense of post modern irony in that a film that is centered around design and that is one part of a three part trilogy of films regarding design, that some of the cinematography violated some very basic rules of aesthetics. It is curious how a film so focused on design could miss that some of the shots and photography do not work and go against basic film conventions, such as refraining from placing fair or white skinned people before a light background.