2 years ago, I remember picking up a copy of Time Out and reading about a documentary called 'Helvetica', a film entirely concerned with the eponymous font. It was on at the ICA and I remember asking all my friends if they wanted to come see it with me. I got the same reply from every person I asked: "Why would you want to see a film about a font?" I really should've just gone by myself but I think that as a result of everyone's disinterest of it, it must've rubbed off on me as well. So I didn't end up watching it and forgot about it. It wasn't until last week that I was reminded of the film when I saw that director Gary Hustwit has a new film out called 'Objectified', all about the everyday objects we use without giving them a second thought and the power and ingenuity the design of each one possesses. Of course, you only ever seem to find out about these things a little too late, and so I discovered I'd missed a screening of the new film in Sao Paulo, along with a Q & A with Hustwit himself. Typical. Anyway, I decided to seek out 'Helvetica' and finally got round to watching it yesterday.

Now, I'd say it's hard enough for even the most avid of cinephiles to be attracted to the idea of a documentary about a font, let alone your average punter. But I have to say that 'Helvetica' is a startlingly fascinating insight into a visual world that most of us will completely take for granted despite living within it every single day of our lives. It's truly astounding to see how omnipresent Helvetica is, from obvious examples like company names such as American Apparel or Orange to more subtle ones like street signs or the word 'Ambulance' on an ambulance in London. Hustwit offers a series of interviews with graphic designers and design writers who account for this proliferation, some suggesting that it's because Helvetica represents a finality in typeface, a font that can't be improved on, whilst others see it as something more bland that companies can, perhaps lazily, always rely on. Whatever the case may be, all of them can agree on one thing: its effectiveness. This is almost unanimously attributed to its neutrality, having no expression or emotion itself. As one designer notes, its neutrality means that the expression is entirely in the content and not the typeface, thereby making it a more genuine than other fonts which may try to convince the reader of its the legitimacy of its content. Another designer in the film, Michael Bierut, illustrates this with a direct comparison between two Coke adverts, one from '53 and one from '69. The '53 one has picture of a family happily drinking coke with a wedding style font underneath reading "Almost everyone appreciates the best!". 16 years later, and things have completely changed: all you have is a big picture of a large, icy coke on platter with the slogan "It's the real thing. Coke." in Helvetica underneath. The modernist transformation that the design world underwent is captured perfectly here, with Helvetica leading the way.

I'm positive that a graphic designer will have a much larger appreciation for the design elements of Helvetica which are occasionally touched upon in the documentary, but I think Hustwit's intention is to make the subject as accessible as possible and to pay tribute to the 50-year old font (though it's no 52). As a result of 'Helvetica', I'm probably going to pay a little more attention to all the words that surround me. It's hard not to really, even looking around my own, it's simply everywhere. And to give you an idea of what I mean, here's the trailer for the film.