When one of your friends says, “Hey let’s watch a full length documentary about a font,” you might be initially less than interested. It’s a font. What could possibly be interesting about a the letters on a page that we are forced to slave over during our the entire duration of our college experience? I had a similar thought process when I first heard about the film “Helvetica” (2007). However, I am interested in graphic design, so I decided to give this documentary a try.

             It is mostly made up of talking head interviews, and then his b-roll is mostly footage shot of street signs and advertisements typed in Helvetica. Knowing this information beforehand might also turn someone off to the idea of sitting through this film. But the director Gary Hustwit did present the information in a compelling and visually interesting way. He interviewed dozens of graphic designers and it’s incredible how passionate they were about Helvetica. Some of them rave about the beauty and universality of the font, others about the perfection of the negative space surrounding the font. Most praise the font, while others seem to express frustration, or perhaps bitterness, at how it’s used for so many things. I suppose I was just surprised that so many people have such strong opinions about typefaces, and that there is actually a lot of time and work that goes into creating an aesthetically pleasing font. At one point, one of the graphic designers, Erik Spiekermann, states, “It’s air, you know, it’s just there. There’s no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica.”

             I felt that the documentary was very fair, because there were interviews with opposing opinions. As mentioned previously, several graphic designers did nothing but praise the font and its scientific perfection. Some others expressed annoyance at how it’s sort of a “bandwagon” font. One of my favorite interviews, though, was very fair and raised a great point. She told an anecdote about how an advertising company wanted four of its employees to sing all the parts and harmonize the beginning of the song “I Get Around” by The Beach Boys (round round get around I get around….) The employees practiced a lot but every time they went to try to sing it, they were flat. They just couldn’t quite recreate the perfection of that segment of the song. She then related that to appreciating art. You don’t appreciate things as much until you try to do them yourself. That process teaches you to be more merciful and grateful when viewing or participating in any kind of art.