At the Village Theaters Andél courtyard a long red carpet lined with Tikki torches stretched before us. High-beam flood lights swept the sky, guiding all of Prague to this auspicious point. No crush of paparazzi nor swooning fans flanked us as we made our way to the entrance, but then again we are only graphic designers. Who else would show up at 22:30 on a Wednesday night for a premier of Helvetica, the movie?
The documentary was one of hundreds of films being screened this week at FebioFest, its brief eighty minutes a mere blip compared to the hours and hours of other footage about real people and real events. Still, “Helvetica” was released here in Prague to collective designer delight—at least for those among us who had been anticipating the film for a good six months. The international design-star-studded cast needed no introduction (nor did they get one in the film): Sagmeister, Beirut, Vignelli, Crowell, Carson, Carter, Poyner, Brody, Spiekerman, Scher, Hoefler-Frere-Jones. Joined by supporting players including famous-among-insiders Mike Parker and Lars Müller, plus the young studios Norm, Experimental Jetset, and Blind, the roster of A-list designers and critics offered their names and unscripted words to pay homage to or take swings at the true star of the film: Helvetica.
Um, who? You know, Helvetica (period) The typeface (period) Ubiquitous mother of all sans serifs (period). If the research and interviews by documentarian Gary Hustwit are to be believed, the whole of typographic culture hinges on Eduard Hoffmann and Max Miedinger’s unassuming interpretation of Akzidenz Grotesque (the prevailing sans serif in mid-fifties Europe). Designed for the Swiss Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei and released in 1957, Helvetica emerged in the sixties as the go-to typeface for designers aspiring to partake in and promote ‘the new.’ Underwritten by socialist ideals of an earlier twentieth century design vanguard, Helvetica became the post-war face of neutrality and un-nationalism, or pan-nationalism. Unfettered by emotion or fruitless individuality, it certainly appealed to the reasonableness in us all—qualities, as it turned out, that proved quite useful to international trade (today we have Helvetica™ World, an Open Type font with a multilingual character set.)
I expect that designers and critics who have seen the film (Boston, Zürich, Austin, Istanbul and Dallas) are busy at this very moment writing their reactions to the film. It doesn’t premier in New York until April 6, nor in Los Angeles until April 27, so while we await the inevitable discussion in the design blogosphere, (Design Observer, Speak Up, Typophile, etc.) some of us here in Prague have a few things we need to say. I begin the discussion, somewhat rhetorically of course, with a series of questions:
Many of the designers in the film talked about Helvetica as if its inherent qualities made it a most accessible and communicative typeface (as opposed to contextual usage that conditions reader reception). The director noted during the Q&A session following the film that the inescapable warnings on European cigarette packages are set in Helvetica. If it is so accessible and communicative, how is it that the director is still smoking? (A question my husband wanted to ask at the screening but didn’t.)
Helvetica proved ubiquitous in signage. I get it. But isn’t Helvetica a family of fonts, designed to be used in paragraphs for reading as well as signage?
Given that the omnipresence of Helvetica is due in some part to its availability in reproduction technologies, how do sign makers choose between it and, say Times Roman (another typeface found everywhere, if you’re looking)? Is Helvetica the default option for “plain” style versus “fancy”?
Hustwit spotted the typeface all around New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Zürich, the same places he found the designers who appeared in the documentary. So the zen question is, there where lives a designer, does also there live Helvetica?
Was this documentary about typeface design or graphic design?
Do women designers (besides Paula) know about Helvetica? April Greiman probably wasn't interviewed because (1) she is devoted to the other white meat, Univers and (2) she lives in Los Angeles. (I know. That's not a question.)
Emigre (launched in 1984) was cited as a primary example of reactions against 60s and 70s design status quo. However no mention was made of the fact that the magazine was the first in the U.S. to publish the work of Experimental Jetset, handing over the design of Issue 57 in 2001, all set in Helvetica, of course. I don't have a question here.
If we have a movie about Helvetica, is it now so over?
See also:
Helvetica as Movie Star on imomus.
Fifty Years of Helvetica at MoMA.
Helvetica Variations
I heard them play at the premier of Tom Stoppard's play 
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