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. http://www.helveticafilm.com/

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.

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.

The film was shot in high-definition on location in the United States, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium. It is currently in post-production and is slated to begin screening at film festivals worldwide starting in early 2007.

Interviewees in Helvetica include 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, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Experimental Jetset, Michael C. Place, Norm, APFEL, Pierre Miedinger, Bruno Steinert, Otmar Hoefer, Rick Poynor, Lars Muller, and many more.

About the Typeface

Helvetica was developed by Max Miedinger in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Munchenstein, Switzerland. In the late 1950s, the European design world saw a revival of older sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk. Haas' director Eduard Hoffmann commissioned Miedinger, a former employee and freelance designer, to draw an updated sans-serif typeface to add to their line. The result was called Neue Haas Grotesk, but its name was later changed to Helvetica, derived from Helvetia, the Roman name for Switzerland, when Haas' German parent companies Stempel and Linotype began marketing the font internationally in 1961.

Introduced amidst a wave of popularity of Swiss design, and fueled by advertising agencies selling this new design style to their clients, Helvetica quickly appeared in corporate logos, signage for transportation systems, fine art prints, and myriad other uses worldwide. Inclusion of the font in home compter systems such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984 only further cemented its ubiquity.

About the Director

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. Helvetica is Hustwit's directorial debut.

Director's Statement

Why make a film about a typeface, let alone a feature documentary film about Helvetica? Because it's all around us. You've probably already seen Helvetica several times today. It might have told you which subway platform you needed, or tried to sell you investment services or vacation getaways in the ads in your morning paper. Maybe it gave you the latest headlines on television, or let you know whether to 'push' or 'pull' to open your office door.

Since millions of people see and use Helvetica every day, I guess I just wondered, "Why?" How did a typeface drawn by a little-known Swiss designer in 1957 become one of the most popular ways for us to communicate our words fifty years later? And what are the repercussions of that popularity, has it resulted in the globalization of our visual culture? Does a storefront today look the same in Minneapolis, Melbourne and Munich? How do we interact with type on a daily basis? And what about the effects of technology on type and graphic design, and the ways we consume it?

So let's just say I had a few questions, and I thought making a film would be a good way to answer them. I also thought that looking at Helvetica's "career" would be a good structure to look at the past 50 years of graphic design, and a starting point for some interesting conversations in the film. And hopefully the film could make people who aren't in the design trade think twice about the words that surround them, and the effect that typefaces have on the way we process those words. I definitely did not want to make a film that had 75 people all saying one quick sound bite about Helvetica, all chopped together. Since there really haven't been any great documentaries made about graphic design and type, I wanted to try to focus on the interviewees in the film as much as the subject matter. People like Wim Crouwel, Massimo Vignelli, Hermann Zapf, Matthew Carter... these are incredibly talented, knowledgeable, humble people, who each deserve an extensive documentary about their careers. And there are so many younger designers doing amazing work today as well, work that hasn't been celebrated in documentary form yet. So I hope that in this film you'll be able to get to know some of these people a little, see some of their work, and then hear their thoughts on type, and, of course, Helvetica.

-Gary Hustwit, New York, July 2006