The popular video-streaming site, Netflix, has an interesting documentary about the font, Helvetica. This is one of the world’s oldest fonts that has continuously been used and has not changed. The documentary struck me as a little odd, and at times even bored me. This documentary had a lot of interesting facts in it, however.
The documentary described Helvetica as the “ultimate typeface of fonts”. This is true because just by walking outside, many can see the font being used on everything from street signs to business signs. It really catches the eye and provides a standard letter format for the viewer to see. The font itself has been around for over 50 years. It originated in Europe and has since spread through out the entire world as a standard font. The documentary took an interesting look at the font by examining the opinion of many different style experts. They presented their view and told different alternatives. There was one man who hated the font. He said, “it’s so plain but so irresistible”. The fact that Helvetica is everywhere definitely adds to the documentary’s credibility. It makes the font seem like an important aspect of life.
The films artistic vision seemed a little off to me. It was formatted in a way that there was little narration. The story moved by interviews and the interviews transitioned with pictures, or b-roll showing examples of Helvetica being used. The music was dry and a lot of the time the interviews just show cased people rambling about art and design. I personally am not an art guru so the film had very boring material. Even though the film was dry, I appreciated the science aspect of it. It did a great job at explaining to the viewer how that shapes and line formation needed to match up perfectly to certain letter for better flow.
Helvetica is definitely a font everyone should know… even if they don’t know that certain letters had a name. The documentary on Netflix provided an interesting look on the font. I would not recommend watching it, but if you appreciate the appreciation of art or fonts, it may interest you.
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