Helvetica

Helvetica (2007) is Gary Hustwit's documentary, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The hook is a birthday: the Helvetica typeface turned fifty in 2007. From that anniversary grows an eighty-minute meditation on typography, graphic design, and the way the lettering all around us shapes what we feel while staying nearly invisible.

The camera roams the streets of major cities and keeps catching Helvetica everywhere — on signage, in the subway, on packaging, in corporate logos. Between those observations sit conversations with first-rank designers: Massimo Vignelli, Erik Spiekermann, Paula Scher, Matthew Carter, Stefan Sagmeister. Some revere the font for its clean neutrality; others read it as the face of dull corporate conformity. The argument turns out to be surprisingly alive.

Hustwit pulls off something tricky — he makes the biography of a single typeface genuinely watchable, and you walk away reading street signs with new eyes. For designers it's essential viewing, but any attentive viewer will find a fresh angle on ordinary things. Stream Helvetica (2007) online on iFILM.