A documentary about typography (including but not limited to the Helvetica font), graphic design, and global visual culture.
So, you might wonder how 90 minutes about a font could be interesting. That must be among the most boring things in the world, right? Not at all. We learn about the whole story of modern typography, and how hard it used to be to design a single letter.
We learn that there is a political message to letter shape choices -- to one woman, Helvetica is the font associated with the Vietnam war (and also Iraq). We get a certain feeling from different shapes, and this is one of them.
One man asks, is there a science of aesthetics that explains why this font is the perfect one? Why no one has been able to improve on it in 50 years? I find that an interesting question. No math went into designing it, but somehow it has an intrinsic style that seems to be the way we now view language.
So, you might wonder how 90 minutes about a font could be interesting. That must be among the most boring things in the world, right? Not at all. We learn about the whole story of modern typography, and how hard it used to be to design a single letter.
We learn that there is a political message to letter shape choices -- to one woman, Helvetica is the font associated with the Vietnam war (and also Iraq). We get a certain feeling from different shapes, and this is one of them.
One man asks, is there a science of aesthetics that explains why this font is the perfect one? Why no one has been able to improve on it in 50 years? I find that an interesting question. No math went into designing it, but somehow it has an intrinsic style that seems to be the way we now view language.