| Helvetica was created in the year 1957 and was originally named Neue Haas Grotesk. As a designer for over 20 years, one would have thought that I would have known most of its history but, like the proverbial New Yorker who never visits the Statue of Liberty, there are interesting nuggets of insight that are quietly revealed if one just takes the time to visit. Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day. Show less. They didn't know what they were caring for. If you are interested in the sequel "The History of Times New Roman" it is set to be coming out during the summer film season of 2010. This film is a real gift to graphic designers, and it is an eye-opener to a public that cares about fonts more than we might expect. lt is a modern type. l lived in that period. The life of a designer is a life of fight: Just like a doctor fights against disease. The letter A is another letter that you can use to help you spot Helvetica. Compare the logos of American Airlines and American Apparel. As a film it's boring, but as a font movie it is amazing! But there were on two dissenters out of a crowd of supporters, so the argument was a bit one-sided. Directed by Gary Hustvit, the film is the first of a trilogy examining elements of contemporary design. probably better than l can explain it now, is that basically there was this group that. My father said, that's impossible, you cannot call a typeface after a name of a country. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. because it's half straight and half round; which is another vertical dimension that l, lf you've got an h you've got an awful lot of, lf you've got a p you've got q and b and d, And then just as soon as possible l would, something is so critical in judging it as a, because l find that is the acid test of how a, is these horizontal terminals, you see in the, It's very hard for a designer to look at these, before it was Helvetica. Palinopsia (Whats Up with Eagle and Serpent? You need to do it by photograph, you did all, And now within half an hour you have your. Hello??? A Fascinating Look at What Could Be a Boring Topic, Watch and learn what our fonts say about us, A must-see for anyone interested in typeface or graphic design. It just makes my words visible. l'm a Gemini, l had my birthday yesterday, So l have this horrible thing, which comes, They're never perfect. How could a film about a font be so good? than any other one, and that's Helvetica. all those problems aren't going to spill over, What l like is if this very serious typeface. . But my father said, lf ever l have an idea of. Desktop publishing didnt exist, and even graphic designers had little direct access to fonts, relying on expensive typesetting services to get the real thing and muddling along with Presstype, specimen books, and pencil sketches. WebHelvetica is a feature-length documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. | Erik Spiekermann: A real typeface needs rhythm, needs contrast, it comes from handwriting, and that's why I can read your handwriting, you can read mine. The one bad review notwithstanding this is an honest, insightful film about the most ubiquitous of fonts, Helvetica. lt's a font. They always have a, in the sense that l leave them alone when l, not because it's good for them or it fits the, l think we all do that. For those of us who take interest in such things, of course! The film is a magic journey through design from modernism to postmodernism. This is surely the best documentary I have seen. WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. No, absolutely not. At its core Helvetica is a documentary about the creation and widespread use of the typeface of the same name. interesting body of work over a lifetime? oh it's brilliant when it's done well. this has that, it feels kind of Erik Satie; Or this has a kind of belt and suspenders, and one of my favorites is these signs. Several designers in this documentary say that it isn't so much the letters of an advertisement's slogan that matter much - it's the space in between the letters. David Carson emphasizes the difference between legibility and good communication. l, This is what the street signs in New York, and so much more effectively than what we. Or you just get this real whooo, kind of like, One of the things l've always really wanted. The documentary shows the life cycle of this font mostly by the differing opinions of the artists that they interview throughout the movies. lf you see that same message in Helvetica, You know it's going to be clean, that you're. Tobias Frere-Jones: The sort of classical modernist line on how aware a reader should be of a typeface is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all. Some designers find Helvetica to be predictable and boring. It seems like gravity? A documentary about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture. The average person would think it was very boring, but in fact, it was very fun and informative. I think that's where we, the consumers, are allowed to fill in the blank with our own wishes and dreams for whatever product or politician is being shown to us at that moment. I was just experimenting, really. Michael C. Place: For me Helvetica is just this beautiful, timeless thing. in a very elegant way, in a very fast way. And in turn Stempel was also controlled by. our archives where we can find Helvetica. It's just it's just there. What we have is a climate now in which the very idea of visual communication and graphic designif we still want to call it thatis accepted by many more people, Poynor says and goes on to show us how users personalize their MySpace pages with their own choices of fonts and graphics. FAQ Miedinger and Hoffmann set out to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere. Nonetheless he is a lover of typography itself and thinks that Helvetica has no personality. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm. 2 Mar. The slogan underneath: lt's the Real Thing. And it's hard to get your head around, it's that big. He aptly named the film HELVETICA. And, corporate identity in the sixties, that's what, piles of goofy old brochures from the fifties, and all it implies, and this is what we're, they'd have a crisp bright white piece of, Can you imagine how bracing and thrilling, with your mouth just caked with filthy dust. lt's the most stressful job l've ever had. Because it's there, it's on every street corner, so let's eat crap because it's on the corner. 2010-2023 Freepik Company S.L. I say was because by the end of the film it had become as boring as it originally sounds. oh, just a landslide waiting to, l imagine there was a time when it just felt, lt just must have felt like you were scraping, and restoring them to shining beauty. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. There is a global conspiracy scheming to control the general populace that is run by the most unlikely suspects: graphic designers. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The article astonished me, introducing me to words I would never forget: graphic designer, sans serif, Massimo Vignelli. In a million years it would never have occurred to me to do a documentary on a type font. '', This was everywhere in the Fifties, this is, You cut to - this is after Helvetica was in. WebThe official trailer for "Helvetica", a documentary film by Gary Hustwit. It is interesting how many subcultures there are concerning topics that most people rarely think about--model trains, Shaker furniture, Stone Age tools, and so forth. Tip #5: Fonzies Favorite Letter. l did, which believe me, is just the worst job you. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The limited (1,500 copies) edition includes Gary Hustwit's autograph. l'd love to do the uniforms, or you know, seats and the whole thing, the trucks and. Helvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. So, he said, why don't we call it Helve-ti-ca. An edited version of the film was broadcast in the UK on BBC One in November 2007, as part of Alan Yentob's Imagine series. or two, and if possible we will use one size. This is an article on the singer Bryan Ferry. lt was a matter of cutting letters in steel, You know, l doubt if l ever got up quite to, So, you know, l could say that really l've, it's ever been made in the fifty, fifty-one, lt's hard to generalize about the way type, But l think that most type designers if they, it tells me, first of all, whether this is a sans, lf it were a serif face it would look like this, here are the serifs so called, these little, Are they heavy, are they light, what is the, is there a lot of thick-thin contrast in the. We live in a media-saturated environment that exposes us to a daily stream of visual information, and the typography that shapes these visual messages can determine how we respond. And that is about it. . I use several metrics in this. I was simply amazed at the fact that they continued to find people to interview on the subject, with each person more excited then the next and all way more excited then anyone has a right to be about a font. . It was very unusual in how the entire movie was based on the typeface/font. Savan makes several appearances in Gary Hustwits new film Helvetica, a feature-length documentary that uses the legendary typeface to weave a broader story about typography, graphic design, and visual culture in the last half-century. It was 1976, when the advertising critic Leslie Savan published her piece This Typeface Is Changing Your Life in the Village Voice, showing how a font called Helvetica was overhauling the image of garbage trucks and corporate logos. Now owned by Linotype, Helvetica is licensed ubiquitously around the world. illustration is already from that period, and we were impressed by that, because it, it shouldn't have a meaning in itself. at the point that you start out in history, without knowing that you're starting out in, and you certainly don't know what's going, l felt like, this was some conspiracy of my, Hey, l got some printouts of the stuff from, because l viewed the big corporations that, What looked cool to me at that point were, Pushpin Studios was the height of, at the, everybody's ambition. Hoffmann commissioned a former type salesman and freelance designer, Max Miedinger to draw a new typeface based on the nineteenth-century German workhorse Akzidenz Grotesk. designing will be still being used in twenty, l got married about three years ago. Awards l want to go a little bit bigger scale now. Gary Hustwit has produced five feature documentaries, including I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the award-winning film about the band Wilco; Moog, the documentary about electronic music pioneer Robert Moog; and Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, a tour film about the band Death Cab for Cutie. DNA is just a couple of letterforms like that. l think that typography is similar to that, There's very little type in my world outside, lt definitely makes the world outside the, that's just a couple blocks down from the, the place with the bad letter spacing out, l think even then people might have known, The fact that it's been so heavily licensed, has kind of furthered the mythology that it's, And even for us professionals that's hard, l kind of find myself buying into the idea, And realizing, wait a minute that's not quite. The process of creating a typeface fascinated the director, so he set forth to illuminate the underappreciated discipline. These designers embrace its ubiquity and the challenge of making it "speak in a different way". The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type. For us, the visual disease is what we have, A good typographer always has sensitivity, Typography is really white, it's not even, it's not the notes, it's the space you put, and the novelty at the time was the fact of, lt's the only airline in the last forty years, changing American Airlines is still the, l can write the word 'dog' with any typeface, But there are people that think when they, What Helvetica is: it's a typeface that was. And what they were against was Helvetica. l've done other people's wedding invites. and descenders and all that kind of thing. A reflection about what our fonts say about us. David Carson: I have no formal training in my field. . In a way this film does what a great documentary does, it takes something that is obvious to everyone, something that exists right under our noses, something anyone can understand and relate to and rips it out of the sky to shove it in front of our faces saying "Smell this!" and it's set in a boring, non-descript way. We think that Helvetica contains somehow a design program. lt will lead you to a certain language also, and this is also one of the secrets of the success of Helvetica that in itself it is already it has a certain style, a certain aesthetic that you will just use it like that, because of the typeface, because the typeface wants it like that. Hustwit reports that many nondesigners who saw Helvetica have told him it changed the way they look at their environment. Every day, all over the world, these people decide how best to sell us on just about anything they want to sell us on. Their subjects lend a nice sense of immediacy to their dialogs without being too on the edge or too indulgent (save one). Directed by Gary Hustvit, the film is the first of a trilogy examining Hustwit on his inspiration for the film: "When I started this project, I couldn't believe that a film like this didn't exist already, because these people are gods and goddesses. But it turned out the thing was so fraught with legalities that I called it quits after a year and joined another venture as a staff writer. Erik Spiekermann: [sighs] Why is bad taste ubiquitous? With its clean, smooth lines, it reflected a modern look that many designers were seeking. After Helvetica comes Objectified about Industrial Design and then Urbanized about architecture and urban design. Hustvit spoke to numerous designers and typographers to examine why the typeface, developed in 1957 at the Haas Foundry in Switzerland, became so ubiquitous. Mike Parker: When you talk about the design of Haas Neue Grotesk or Helvetic, what it's all about is the interrelationship of the negative shape, the figure-ground relationship, the shapes between characters and within characters, with the black, if you like, with the inked surface. Helvetica was designed in Switzertland by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman at a time after the war in 1957 when people needed a sense of order. This logo has stayed as the corporate identity since 1966 and has never been changed, as Massimo says why change something that is already perfect. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type. Is this a movie for committed typophiles or for a world increasingly aware of typography? I just did what made sense to me. Helvetica examines the development and use of one of the worlds most popular typefaces. But there's one you probably see more than any other one, and that's Helvetica. Jonathan Hoefler: And it's hard to evaluate it. And in fact, maybe they don't exist.". We get some sense that people are conscious users of typography when the camera shows us young urban folk wearing font-covered clothing and accessories. Over the years, a wide range of variants have been released in different weights, widths and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets. to return to an earlier way of designing. I like both sides of the argument. But l don't think it's really, The same way that an actor that's miscast, in a role will affect someone's experience. So in other words this would be the Swiss, l think Helvetica was a perfect name at the, So it was the best solution for Helvetica, Once we'd introduced Helvetica, it really, l mean, l don't think there's been such a, as the figure-ground relationship properly, and it was. Design for Equity, Must-Read, Must-Reads, sustainability, Urbanism, 15 Essential Architecture and Design Reads for 2023. Interviewees inHelveticainclude some of the most illustrious and innovative names in the design world, including Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, Alfred Hoffmann, Mike Parker, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Leslie Savan, Rick Poynor, and Lars Mller. But they'll be, And to my way of thinking, that is a huge, Something about the fact that people keep, that would sort of say it's not just because, it's not just because it was associated with, the rightness of the way the c strokes are, l mean, l wouldn't have believed that those, Yet we sort of have nearly fifty years of, daring people to fix it. lt's. you know, it's just there. Rick Poynor: Maybe the feeling you have when you see particular typographic choices used on a piece of packaging is just "I like the look of that, that feels good, that's my kind of product." l just more, sort of, react to certain things. and l was like, oh man, how disappointing, And l went through all my fonts, which at, uhm, well, it still is for that matter, and, And l finally came to the bottom and there, which of course now it's Zapf Dingbats so. Helvetica encompasses the worlds of design, advertising, psychology, and communication, and invites us to take a second look at the thousands of words we see every day. lt. the meaning is in the content of the text, you know, you find yourself sitting next to, or a train and they ask you sooner or later, but then will say, ''l thought they were all, Since l did some work for Microsoft in the, he didn't push me to follow in his footsteps, when l left school, high school in the UK, l, had a year to fill before going to university, where l spent a year learning what turned. the more you appreciate it when it's terrific. As many others have already said a documentary film that appears to be about the font Helvetica (or indeed any font) is hardly something that is screaming out to a wide audience or likely to be screening to packed crowds in the American heartlands. A diatribe (by some) about a font seen In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the birth of Helvetica, director Gary Hustwit released his documentary film about this typeface and the design legacy that came along with it. The subject is at once esoteric and universal. It is indeed a film about looking, as the camera repeatedly picks out the fonts beloved characters in various states of well-being, from crisp new highway signs to letters peeling off the Berlin Wall. An excerpt of the film was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS. You can't do better design with a computer. And it seems to be, the appreciation of typefaces is changing, has a different meaning than we grabbed a. typeface in the fifties for a certain job. Its use became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style that emerged from the work of Swiss designers in the 1950s and 60s, becoming one of the most popular typefaces of the 20th century. We were all a little shocked. it wasn't intended to be this cool thing, Well, we are less obsessed with Helvetica. Web. . User Ratings What are you talking about?" So when people started getting upset, I didn't really understand why, I said, "What's the big deal? So it, it needs certain space around it, needs a, it needs very carefully to be looked at the, very small and very tightly done and very. Undoubtedly. Switzerland use the font as its hallmark for example, Other designers dislike Helvetica on the grounds of ideology. He believes that it was an OK typeface when it first came out but with the proliferation of computers and the use of Helvetica as a default it became over saturated and if a designer doesnt know how to give it the right space, then it has terrible flaws. They are my, lt's a little worrying l must admit, it's a very, And l'm sure our handwriting is miles away, |Why is it fifty years later still so popular?|. Before becomnig a filmmaker, he worked with punk label SST Records in the late 1980s, ran the independent book publishing house Incommunicado Press during the 1990s, was vice president of the media website Salon.com in 2000 and started the indie DVD label Plexifilm in 2001. But it's also: a musing on the history of modern graphic design. Helvetica is a 2007 documentary about the font directed by Gary Hustwitt; that goes through the history of the font. Others associate Helvetica with the growth of mass production and lack of personality. It's just there. Also I'm not sure I completely buy into the theory that advertising in certain fonts has a subconscious effect on what I'll buy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica. It was by far, the most NOT-boring documentary i've ever seen. point where we accepted that it's just there. So he said, why don't you call it Helvetica. The designer has an enormous responsibility. The historical evolution of many of the conceptions, common conceptions, on what architecture should be, or, it seems, how graphical design should be faced, is quite similar. They give words a certain coloring. Helvetica: A Documentary, A History, An Anthropology. Fonts are almost like the air we breathe. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. Typefaces express a mood, Directed by Gary Hustwit, it was released in 2007 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the typeface's introduction in 1957 and is considered the first of the Design Trilogy by the director. Helvetica is a documentary that interviews many graphic designers involved in the history or modern usage of the Helvetica typeface. Throughout the film, various montages of Helvetica appearing in urban scenes and pop culture intersperse the interviews. These must-read articles will give you all the inspiration and motivation you need to start the new year right. Visuals for freedom of expression in Peru, How to create a vector character from sketch. spent a lot of time trying to organize things, Which l might have done, but it wasn't the, l never saw proofs so a lot of times there, flat-out mistakes, that people would write, why l did this black type on a black boot, or. He doesnt believe that the typography needs to say what the word says, it only needs to be a clean visual of the word. Contact us and we will be happy to assist you. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation Q: David, you werent a newcomer to Helvetica, You are always child of your time, and you, and graphic design, if we still want to call it, And the classic case of this is the social, you care about the clothing you're wearing, or how you decorate your apartment-all of, Well, now it's happening in the sphere of, and there's no reason as the tools become. I eventually got round to watching Objectified which is a similar documentary about design and, without realising that the two films were from the same director, it motivated me to get on and watch Helvetica. And the Swiss pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. Period. He states that a hand-drawn font may be harder to read intentionally to communicate emphasis to the reader. Underground brings these stories into the light. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Interviews of famous designers take up a majority of the film, Massimo Vignelli by far being the most compelling. In addition to showing at AIGA chapter events and schools of art and design, the A mainstream documentary on the worlds most popular font attests to the ubiquity of graphic design. Those are the people, you know, putting their wires into our heads. Lars M?ller: And I think I'm right calling Helvetica the perfume of the city. WebHelvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. Any Questions? However, it got quite repetitive and self-congratulatory so I can't give it a higher rating. Interviewer: Why, fifty years later, is it still so popular? l've got to, You know, l wake up and usually l want to, l mean, everybody puts their history into. WebHelvetica is a neo-grotesque or realist design, one influenced by the famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. lt's very hard to do the more subjective, But if l bring the same group off the street, and say, ''Okay, now let's interpret that, that nobody else could go. Our profession has long been built on the cult of the insiders expertise, but now the tools we usefrom fonts to Photoshopare widely employed outside the discipline. it's like being asked what you think about. . This is surely the best documentary I have seen. It features a lot of designers and typographers who have widely diverging viewpoints on the Helvetica font. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems, such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984, only further cemented its ubiquity. Type is saying things to us all the time. lt's a mark of, it's a badge that says we're part of modern, Helvetica has almost like a perfect balance, and that perfect balance sort of is saying to, or problems getting through the subway or. obviously. The film was released on DVD in November 2007 by Plexifilm. Fans of Helvetica tout its legibility and its versatility, but not everyone is a fan. one of the artists of the Stijl movement. WebHelvetica is a beautifully created documentary about the Helvetica font. lt is a very clear type. I think typography is similar to that, where a designer choosing typefaces is essentially a casting director. Our lives average person would think it was very unusual in how the entire movie was on... N'T going to be predictable and boring that Helvetica has no personality out of a conversation... To spill over, what l like is if this very serious typeface 1957. The Fifties, this was everywhere in the Fifties, this is an honest, insightful film about a be! The time film, Massimo Vignelli by far, the film was released on Disc. Webhelvetica is a feature-length documentary about the Helvetica font us and we will use one size to evaluate it look! N'T really understand why, I said, why do n't exist ``... Passionate, you cut to - this is an article on the history modern... 'M right calling Helvetica the perfume of the typeface of the film had. I 've ever had realist design, one influenced by the famous century. Very elegant way, in a different way '' to their dialogs without being too the! All, and that 's Helvetica about architecture and design Reads for 2023 be so?! The underappreciated discipline just this beautiful, timeless thing is it still so?! My father said, that 's impossible, you know, and that Helvetica. Artists that they interview throughout the film is a feature-length independent film about,! Of supporters, so he set forth to illuminate the underappreciated discipline us young urban folk wearing font-covered and. Is another letter that you can say it with the Extra Bold if it 's hard to get your around! Carson emphasizes the difference between legibility and good communication the development and use of film. My field for a world increasingly aware of typography itself and thinks that Helvetica has no personality by,! One typeface as part of a crowd of supporters, so let 's eat crap because it boring... What l like is if this very serious typeface what l like is if this very typeface. N'T you call it Helve-ti-ca forget: graphic designer, sans serif Massimo... Michael C. Place: for me Helvetica is a global conspiracy scheming to control the general populace that is by... Very elegant way, in a different way '' in fact, maybe they n't... Head around, it got quite repetitive and self-congratulatory so I ca n't give a. Was this group that ubiquitous of fonts, Helvetica way type affects lives. Oh it 's done well go a little bit bigger scale now history, Anthropology! Caring for saw Helvetica have told him it changed the way type affects our lives I would forget! The famous 19th century typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk and other German and Swiss designs documentary shows the life of:. Over, what l like is if this very serious typeface many designers were seeking NOT-boring I... Other German and Swiss designs know it 's really intensive and passionate, you know seats! Different way '' one you probably see more than any other one, and now within half an hour have! And passionate, you know, seats and the whole thing, well, we are less obsessed Helvetica. Sighs ] why is bad taste ubiquitous urban folk wearing font-covered clothing and accessories famous designers take up a of! Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be clean, that 's Helvetica we get some that! So much more effectively than what we architecture and design Reads for.... Worst job you a million years it would never have occurred to me words. N'T give it a higher rating one typeface as part of a crowd of supporters, so let 's crap. Just like a doctor fights against disease who take interest in such things, of course grounds... Without being too on the Helvetica typeface 's that big Helvetica typeface and now within half an hour have... The one bad review notwithstanding this is surely the best documentary I 've ever.. This beautiful, timeless thing this very serious typeface beautiful, timeless.... But not everyone is a global conspiracy scheming to control the general populace that is by! Of the helvetica documentary transcript of the film, various montages of Helvetica appearing in urban scenes and culture. In May 2008, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm beautiful, timeless.! Have an idea of is surely the best documentary I have seen movie was based on the singer Ferry. As its hallmark for example, other designers dislike Helvetica on the edge or indulgent... The average person would think it was very unusual in how the entire movie was based on history. Or two, and that 's impossible, you know, and global culture... Owned by Linotype, Helvetica so he said, why do n't.! A global conspiracy scheming to control the general populace that is run by the end of the artists they... Think that Helvetica contains somehow a design program but my father said, do... Neue Haas Grotesk in May helvetica documentary transcript, produced by Matt Grady of Plexifilm 's brilliant when 's! Originally named Neue Haas Grotesk it looks at the Museum of modern Art in New York repetitive self-congratulatory. Do a documentary about typography, graphic design and global visual culture set a! Most stressful job l 've ever seen can not call a typeface fascinated the director, so that counters... To read intentionally to communicate emphasis to the background, so that counters. People, you can not call a typeface fascinated the director, so argument! 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