Helvetica (2007)
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Description

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. 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 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.

Tags

Typography, Graphic design, Global visual culture

Collected reviews and ratings

9.2 Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

Even viewers who've never given a serif a second thought, though, are in for an exclamation point of joy from such a well-designed doc.
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9.0 Amazon user reviews

The historical significance of the typeface as well as the on-going evolution of typography make this a must see for anyone interested in typography and graphic design, but also a fine entertainment for film enthusiasts.
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8.3 The Onion A.V. Club | Tasha Robinson

Probably only a small handful of very serious type fanatics were salivating over the idea of a documentary about the ubiquitous font Helvetica, but to his credit, first-time director Gary Hustwit finds those people, winds them up, and lets them go, and their outsized personalities make Helvetica far livelier than the film's boxy, sleek-but-generic typeface necessarily deserves.
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8.0 efilmcritic.com | William Goss

Thanks in no small part to director of photography Luke Geissbuhler’s crisp composition with high-definition cameras, 'Helvetica' still manages to overcome a seemingly slight subject and approach to be as unexpectedly absorbing and amusing, as enlightening and entertaining, as any decent documentary could hope to be.
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8.0 PopMatters.com | Karen Shimizu

In Helvetica, Neville Brody, a British graphic designer, sums up the typeface’s core appeal. “If it says it in Helvetica, it’s going to be clean, you’re going to fit in, you’re not going to stand out.”
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8.0 New York Times | Matt Zoller Seitz

You’re guaranteed to spend the next few days scanning the world for Helvetica like a child on a cross-country car trip playing I Spy.
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7.0 DVD Talk | Phil Bacharach

Helvetica, in fact, is the most impressive type of documentary. It introduces audiences to - and immerses them in - a decidedly eclectic subject about which they aren't likely to know much beforehand. And yet the film deftly reveals the hidden power of typeface as well as its artistic and propagandistic implications.
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5.0 Slant Magazine | Ed Gonzalez

Helvetica, the first - perhaps only - documentary about a typeface, is a nifty, proudly nerdy acknowledgement of the effect letters, and how they are arranged, can have on our consciousness.
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