Yesterday I watched Helvetica, the movie, on the train to Oxford from Brighton. I would dare to suggest this documentary is interesting to normal people as well as geeks working with typography, as it is very well directed and there are even laugh out loud moments (not good when you’re sitting on a crowded train).

It was a strange experience to watch this movie because I know so many of the figures speaking, through their books, articles, and graphic design work. To actually hear accents and see faces added a new interesting dimension to my previous knowledge. Michael Bierut is as engaging in interview as his articles on Design Observer (perhaps written editorship isn’t humour-friendly, as Bierut was one of the funniest speakers in the documentary), and Rick Poynor, of Eye Magazine fame, is a smart and engaging speaker as well.

The typeface Helvetica is special because it is ubiquitous as air. It is now an ever-present and perhaps permanent visual fixture of modern life. We have all seen Helvetica; Jonathan Hoefler suggested that people perhaps knew what Helvetica was before they knew what a font was. A joint creation of Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann, Helvetica was born in Münchenstein, Switzerland, at the Haas typefoundry. The Haas typefoundry is a fairly nondescript warehouse building, and was quite a visual contrast to the previous shots of New York city which showed Helvetica in use on the top of buses, on huge billboards, on shop signs and corporate identities.

Helvetica and Akzidenz-Grotesk

Initially named Neue Haas Grotesk, Linotype suggested it was renamed to Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland. Miedinger argued that a typeface cannot be named after a country, so he in turn suggested a corruption of the word Helvetia: Helvetica. Linotype agreed, and Helvetica was born. What’s really interesting to me is that Helvetica was designed by Haas to compete with Akzidenz-Grotesk (see above image to compare with Helvetica), a Swiss typeface already on the market. It’s still not clear in my mind why Helvetica enjoyed fame, wide-usage, and now, perhaps bizarrely, movie fame, while Akzidenz-Grotesk languished in relative obscurity. It’s possible the United States-friendly name “Helvetica” had something to do with it; perhaps Miedinger was especially successful in his goal to remake Akzidenz-Grotesk as a “more even and unified” typeface. I’m not sure. Perhaps it was both.

Massimo Vignelli, another funny speaker and typographic genius, I was less familiar with. Vignelli started the New York branch of Unimark International in 1966, the firm that designed the American Airlines logo. Designed around fifty years ago, the American Airlines logo is still in use today. American Airlines in red and blue, and in Helvetica. How could it be more American, how could it be better? I think this example underlined that Helvetica is a rare, timeless typeface. Although it is around fifty years old, the corporate identity still looks so new, modern, and clean:

American Airlines logo designed by Massimo Vignelli at Unimark

Vignelli gave some interesting and very funny insights into type. I agree with his view that type should not be expressive, or that it should aim to express the information the words contain. A typeface should not draw attention to itself as a typeface. Vignelli disagrees with the people who think the word dog should look like a dog. Worse, he says, there are people who think the word dog should bark. “They have a different point of view from mine.”

In conclusion, this movie is about a typeface that has been successful in being completely nondescript, so nondescript that it’s been adopted across modern visual culture to communicate brands, instructions, and information clearly and ubiquitously. Helvetica is also remarkable for its flexibility: as Vignelli said, you can say “I love you” in Helvetica (and in Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy; extra bold if you want to communicate intensity), and remarkably, as Vignelli says, you can also say “I hate you” in Helvetica. It’s a chamaeleon typeface that can at once make Urban Outfitters look “cheeky”, and serious corporations appear efficient and professional. It’s a flexible, clear, modern, timeless typeface that doesn’t distract with decoration, and I think Helvetica successfully fulfills Paul Renner’s vision of a unified, single typeface, which was his vision for Futura.

Futura

Now a movie has been made about Helvetica, I wonder if its time is up?

I guess we’ll have to use Neuzeit instead…