
Helvetica, a documentary - arpitbatra123
https://www.hustwit.com/helvetica
======
Hnrobert42
I enjoyed learning the cultural context from which Helvetica emerged. In
particular, I remember one man talking about how in the early 1900s, a
company’s letterhead might have a floral font proclaiming The Inimitable
Widgets, Gadgets, and Sprongdonacle Corporation of the Empire State. Then
Helvetica comes along, and the company’s letterhead becomes Widgets Co. The
same clean look mirrored in Mid-Century Modern and the Space Age.

I do wish the film had more details about the form of the font itself. E.g.
explain the anatomy of a font, the choices made about the various parts, why
subtle differences between Helvetica and Arial have significant impacts, etc.
If anyone knows a good source of that kind of information, I would love to
hear of it.

~~~
082349872349872
That's the optimistic angle; the pessimistic is that Helvetica grew in
popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-
century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party.

(Helvetia itself gained a fourth national language in 1938, due to comments
made by someone who made his trains run on time; the dutch reformed their
spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the
same language family who they had had the involuntary pleasure of hosting,
etc. etc.)

Maria Ivanova tells her class at the end of the day that they should find out
what their ancestors did during the Great Patriotic War. The next morning, she
calls on little Johnny. He says "My great-great-grandfather was electrician:
his helmet had two lightning bolts..."

Edit: added involuntary, for clarity. Neemt u me niet kwalijk.

~~~
Fnoord
> the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a
> neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the
> pleasure of hosting

Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting
what exactly?

~~~
maayank
> Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of
> hosting what exactly?

Hosted a party! In seriousness though, s/he refers to the German occupation of
the Netherlands in WW2.

~~~
082349872349872
Luckily that was a long time ago, and those sorts of politics have been
discredited for a good portion of a century.

These days we are all excellent to each other and party on.

(if you're ready to party, here's some dutch cultural appropriation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVz_IJoyO6Y)
)

------
fimdomeio
And if I may suggest: Articles of interest – suits[1]. Suits are in a lot of
ways the helvetica of garments.

[1] [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-
int...](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-interest-10/)

~~~
082349872349872
From the textile viewpoint, suits are the copperplate of garments.

In many cultures, traditional wear can be made out of rectangles of fabric
with minimal cutting and sewing. (consider the togas from "Animal House")

A suit used to say "I have so many rectangles of fabric, I can afford to waste
most of them by cutting out irregular shapes and then sewing some fraction of
the resulting pieces back together". (Now all it says is that I can afford the
time to have someone take my measurements)

~~~
dehrmann
Considering how much fabric is somewhat redundant in those traditional
garments, the measuring, cutting, and sewing are more interesting than the
wasted fabric.

------
disposedtrolley
I haven't watched Helvetica, but the same director also made Objectified which
is fascinating look into the industrial design of everyday products.

[https://www.hustwit.com/objectified](https://www.hustwit.com/objectified)

~~~
glenngillen
Add Urbanized to that list too, it’s a really great look at how cities and
their spaces are designed.

He also recently produced Rams which I’ve not yet had a chance to see but I
hope is on par with his previous work.

And if you enjoy these films you’ll also likely appreciate the Abstract series
which originally aired on Netflix.

~~~
jamesvandyne
Rams is great. Bought it on Vimeo shortly after it came out. You won’t regret
it.

When Rams speaks about design, it always makes me reflect on modern software
and how we’ve regressed so much. Though I think’s mostly as a single widget
does 20 different things, which isn’t a great idea in the first place.

~~~
ghaff
>Though I think’s mostly as a single widget does 20 different things, which
isn’t a great idea in the first place.

You mean like a smartphone? :-)

It's a tradeoff. For example, even a well-equipped kitchen generally doesn't
have every sort of one-off small appliance or implement. On the one hand, if
you do make a lot of rice, say, a rice cooker makes a lot of sense. If you
make rice a few times a year? Probably makes more sense just to make it on the
stovetop.

------
zvr
The director, Gary Hustwit, made his films (Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized,
Workplace, Rams, and others) available for free during the first weeks of the
lockdown -- each one for a week. It was nice to see them again.

[https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free](https://www.ohyouprettythings.com/free)

------
wodenokoto
If you haven’t watched this movie yet you really should.

I’d dare say, without it we wouldn’t see half the articles we see on HN about
fonts and typography.

------
thomk
I love this movie. Its well done and some of the characters in it are self
described nerds. Typefaces are a fascinating subject one you start to get into
them.

"Hacker News" typeface in the upper left (which I believe is Verdana) does not
have any serifs on it. Serifs are the extra little points and tails on
letters. Hacker News body font and logo does not have serifs, therefore it is
sans-serif. 'sans' meaning 'without'.

Sans-serifs are also called grotesque (or grotesk) because it appears as
though the letters have had limbs amputated. :D Or at least that's how I
remember the term. People definitely though they were ugly when they first
appeared.

Text written in a serif typeface is considered more distinguished and
authoritative . Imagine the bible written in the same font used on HN here, it
would look odd.

Isn't HN authoritative and distinguished? I'll let the reader decide. However
you should consider that you are reading the word 'fart' right now in it.

Fart.

------
thomasfl
I can strongly reccommend «Objectified», another one of Gary Hustwits
documentaries. It features interviews with the legendary german industrial
designer Dieter Ramms, where he praises Apple. It also has an interview with
Jony Ive where he talks about the MacBook. «Urbanized» is also a good
documentary from Hustwit, about urban design.

------
eris_agx
In case you also liked the trailer soundtrack, here it is
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kn4wUd3UDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kn4wUd3UDY)

------
Wistar
See also: "Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black"

[https://vimeo.com/31237546](https://vimeo.com/31237546)

~~~
dehrmann
I liked the information, but I didn't enjoy the "Behind the Music" parody
format.

------
vijucat
Aside: I noticed that Google has some great fonts as part of Google Slides and
other products while helping my daughter with her distance learning homework
during the recent COVID 19 scare. In particular, I liked Comfortaa [1],
Pacifico [2] (as a Comic Sans alternative), and Merriweather [3] (as a formal
alternative for Times New Roman). You can download them here:
[https://fonts.google.com/?sort=popularity](https://fonts.google.com/?sort=popularity)

[1]
[https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Comfortaa](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Comfortaa)
[2]
[https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Pacifico](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Pacifico)
[3]
[https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Merriweather](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Merriweather)

~~~
tasuki
Indeed - Google Fonts lists some good typefaces! I've listed my favourites at
[https://fonts.tasuki.org/](https://fonts.tasuki.org/)

------
sradman
From the about page [1]:

Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker and photographer based in New
York....

In 2007 he made his directorial debut with Helvetica, the world’s first
feature-length documentary about graphic design and typography. The film
marked the beginning of a design film trilogy, with Objectified, about
industrial design and product design following in 2009, and Urbanized, about
the design of cities, in 2011. The films have been broadcast on PBS, BBC, HBO
and television outlets in 20 countries, and have been screened in over 300
cities worldwide. Workplace, a documentary project about the future of the
office, was commissioned for the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture. His
most recent feature film, Rams, about German design legend Dieter Rams with
original music by Brian Eno, was released in Fall 2018.

[1] [https://www.hustwit.com/about](https://www.hustwit.com/about)

------
vsviridov
Very nice movie, recommend the full set, helvetica, objectified, urbanized, by
the same director

------
bcks
I really enjoyed this film, but in telling the story of the cultural power and
ubiquity of Helvetica, I think it dramatically underplays the fact that
variations on Helvetica have been pre-installed on most modern personal
computers by default.

~~~
dehrmann
> variations on Helvetica have been pre-installed on most modern personal
> computers by default

Windows doesn't have one.

~~~
monocasa
Arial is essentially a Helvetica variation. At it's most charitable, Arial is
to Helvetica as RC Cola is to Coke, with Monotype owning Arial and Linotype
owning Helvetica.

~~~
dehrmann
You're not wrong, but there are vocal designers that wouldn't be happy with
that comparison.

------
waynecochran
I am a bit of a typesetting geek, but the lady who says Helvetica caused the
Vietnam War really opened my eyes to damage caused by such a ubiquitous font.
/s

------
rcarmo
This is a great documentary. I watched it a long time ago, and it felt pretty
timeless, just like Helvética itself.

~~~
corty
Timeless is just another word for "endlessly boring" which the movie isn't,
but Helvetica is by now ;)

------
yasinaydin
These guys. Not only they make money from their fonts, but they make money
from marketing it, too.

------
mensetmanusman
Helvetica shows up in this famous BBC documentary:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBaVwwuErmU)

------
corty
Great film. Wish there was something similar about other typefaces that had
significance, e.g. Bauhaus/Universa, Futura, Times, or Comic Sans ;)

------
tunnuz
Totally worth watch.

------
Jaruzel
I'm hoping the sequel will be about 'Why everyone should love MS Comic Sans'.

~~~
Wistar
The Guardian: Interview: "How we made the typeface Comic Sans"

[https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/mar/28/how-
we-...](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/mar/28/how-we-made-font-
comic-sans-typography)

------
WalterBright
I'm probably a cretin, but I just don't understand all the fuss about a font.

~~~
thomk
Actually a font is a file on a computer, Helvetica is a typeface. Does that
help? :D Probably not.

~~~
hatmatrix
> The distinction between font and typeface is that a font designates a
> specific member of a type family such as roman, boldface, or italic type,
> while typeface designates a consistent visual appearance or style which can
> be a "family" or related set of fonts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface)

------
archsurface
There's a game called typerider for people interested in typography.

~~~
Wistar
Also, although somewhat tedious, there is a "what font is this?" game called
Typewar.

[http://typewar.com/](http://typewar.com/)

------
webmaven
Needs a (2007) in the title. Great film.

