Hel­vetica (the doc­u­men­tary film) is not about Hel­vetica (the type­face), per se. Rather, it’s about the arts of graphic design and typog­ra­phy, their prac­ti­tion­ers, and how they affect our daily lives.

Each lumi­nary talk­ing head has a dif­fer­ent expla­na­tion of Helvetica’s appeal and longevity: neu­tral­ity, leg­i­bil­ity, per­fec­tion (unlike more ornate type­faces, it is arguably com­prised of the purest state of let­ter­forms and can’t be improved), cleans­ing renewal (tran­si­tion­ing the tacky design of the 1950s to the bold and to-the-point 60s), problem-solving, sooth­ing­ness, and just plain beauty. Its detrac­tors see its ubiq­uity as self-perpetuating, due to design­ers’ momen­tum, habit, and bad taste. The enthu­si­asm of the enthu­si­asts is infec­tious, but the movie doesn’t mock them or hold them up as objects of curios­ity culled from a nerdy sub­cul­ture (as does, arguably, The King of Kong).

The days when typog­ra­phers had dirty fingers

Thank­fully for its sub­ject mat­ter of graphic design, direc­tor Gary Hus­twit presents a highly pol­ished work full of excel­lent typog­ra­phy, motion graph­ics, and edit­ing. This Dork Reporter bemoans the ten­dency of many doc­u­men­taries (like Spell­bound and Word­play) to use their non-fiction badge as a press pass to excuse grain, sloppy fram­ing, and poor sound.

This Dork Reporter is a self-educated web designer, not prop­erly trailed in the art and/or craft of graphic design. But he knows enough to applaud the film for touch­ing upon two of the biggest aspects of typog­ra­phy that every layper­son should internalize:

• Know your terms: “Type­faces” are designs. “Fonts” are par­tic­u­lar imple­men­ta­tions of those designs. There are mul­ti­ple fonts based on the type­face Helvetica.

• Arial is a poor Hel­vetica knock-off cre­ated by Microsoft to side-step the expen­sive licens­ing fees. It is an abom­i­na­tion, a blight upon this planet earth, and should be sum­mar­ily deleted from humanity’s hard dri­ves. (q.v. The Scourge of Arial)

We’d be lost with­out Hel­vetica… literally

Finally, this Dork Reporter must note a major dis­ap­point­ment: I rented Hel­vetica from Net­flix, and the disc arrived embla­zoned with a “Red Enve­lope Enter­tain­ment” label. Bizarrely, there were no signs of the exten­sive bonus fea­tures promised on the movie’s offi­cial web­site. Has Net­flix begun releas­ing “not-so-special” edi­tions of DVDs omit­ting the bonus fea­tures avail­able on retail edi­tions? This Dork Reporter, long a relier on Net­flix to help keep his DVD shelves from groan­ing into a black hole of over­con­sump­tion, stamps his feet in frustration.

Offi­cial movie site: www.helveticafilm.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.