Helvetica

Excellent!

"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."

About this entry

By John Hoare
Posted on Monday, August 28 2006 @ 10:32 pm
Categorised in Film
Tagged with helvetica, fonts
16 comments

Comments

There are about five people in the entire world who would masturbate while watching this movie. John and I account for two of them.

By Philip J Reed, VSc
August 28, 2006 @ 10:54 pm

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I guess I'm number three, then.

By Jake Monkeyson
August 29, 2006 @ 1:00 am

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That leaves two Golden Tickets unaccounted for...

By Philip J Reed, VSc
August 29, 2006 @ 1:02 am

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*raises one hand*

By Cappsy
August 29, 2006 @ 10:15 am

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Everyone's a font geek. I have to be honest and say I don't care about Helvetica, but if this was a documentary about the triple-blight of Matisse ITC, Mistral and especially Comic Sans I'd be right there. Every time I see any of those on a leaflet, a shop window, a website, I want to break some heads.

By James H
August 29, 2006 @ 10:33 am

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Helvetica is a lovely font, and I used it for years because it's a standard font that came with RISC OS (under the name Homerton, to avoid trademark issues).

But the problem with it is that it's *very* easy to use lazily. Use a large font size, reduce the kerning, and you've got something that's trying to look arty without any actual artistic effort being put into it at all.

So, I'm using it for the new design of Flange Log, obviously...

By John Hoare
August 29, 2006 @ 10:45 am

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I'm a Georgia man myself. Although I do love a bit of teeny teeny tiny Verdana...

By Seb
August 29, 2006 @ 12:58 pm

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It's absolutely pathetic that there's no widely-supported way to provide your own fonts for websites. In 2006. It should have been solved five years ago.

By John Hoare
August 29, 2006 @ 1:02 pm

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Oh by no means is Helvetica my favorite. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't interested in a documentary about it. Very interested. Like stop-talking-to-my-family-because-they-called-me-a-nerd-for-wanting-to-see-it interested.

By Philip J Reed, VSc
August 29, 2006 @ 1:03 pm

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I think it's amusing how many of us geeks are geeks about the same things. Tick one box, and it's more than likely that there's a few other boxes to tick as well.

By Tanya Jones
August 29, 2006 @ 1:59 pm

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You'd have thought the website for a film about typography would use resizable fonts. I can hardly read the thing on this laptop.

By Jake Monkeyson
August 29, 2006 @ 2:17 pm

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I'm with you on the blight of Comic Sans. It has the be the most misused font of all time. It just makes be want to get violent when people give me *business cards* using it. What sort of image are they trying to give?

By Daisy
August 29, 2006 @ 9:31 pm

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