Everything is designed.
Everything we engage with and use, everything we read and drive and throw away… it was designed. Someone at some point sat down and created those multitude of things that surrounds all of us, and there is something exciting about this. As a writer and a designer, knowing that I am part of that creative process that has gone on for thousands of years and (hopefully) will go on for thousands more… it’s cool.
Everything is designed… even typefaces like Helvetica.
The work of a designer is a fight against ugliness, an interview subject says early on in the documentary Helvetica. The designer, Massimo Vignelli, was once of the first “modernist” designers who created many different type styles and designs that broke the mold of traditional design. The 2007 documentary Helvetica tells this and other stories, and in telling it makes a very dry subject – typography – engaging to even non-designers.
I use “engaging” instead of the word “exciting” because, like it’s subkject matter, the documentary is bone-dry… and it’s really hard to get excited watching several german designers go on and on about fonts and typography. The filmmakers try very hard to avoid the typical “talking-heads trap” that documentary films like this falls into, by intercutting a lot of signage and usage of the now-ubiquitous font. It almost works, but in the end you still have a lot of people talking at a camera about a font.
There’s no great revelations here, though there is a great segment covering how the “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue took advantage of the modernist design movement and helvetica to completely change advertising in the 1960s (I would have liked to see a lot more “before and after” ads in that segment). Another great segment is about how designers like David Carson broke the mold of modernist design and did very bold “post-modern” work (a design style I like… sometimes).
(Quick sidebar: I had the distinct pleasure of meeting David Carson around the time this documentary was made, and he’s a great guy – I urge all of you reading this to pick up one of his design books).
It’s a solid piece of filmmaking, an interesting look at design and typography from the perspective of the people using a multitude of fonts to communicate ideas…
But they mostly use helvetica.