Helvetica: The Movie (And Why You Should See It)

March 5, 2008

eQuixotic is not a blog for or about graphic designers. But it is a blog for eLearning designers who really need to think more like graphic designers.

I’m not a graphic designer by training, nor technically even by profession, though graphic design is what I hope to do in my next life. Design of all kinds fascinates me. I love to study visual design and dabble in it whenever I can. Yes, I’m a hack. A noob. A rank amateur. A poseur of the highest order. But I hope that broadening my understanding of visual design translates to my eLearning design work (and why wouldn’t it?).

This will not be news to serious graphic designers, but many eLearning designers may not be aware of the documentary film Helvetica by Gary Hustwit. The film explores the history of the ubiquitous typeface Helvetica and the massive impact it’s had on visual communication worldwide. It’s a fascinating exploration of the influence the physical appearance of words has on their content: their meaning (both implied and inferred), ability to communicate, and power to persuade.I heard about this film some time ago, but only recently remembered to add it to my Netflix queue. Upon doing so, I was intrigued to see a Play button under the typical Add button on the Netflix page. While I knew Netflix had added the ability to view movies online, I hadn’t tried that option before. Of course upon clicking the button I immediately got the standard “this feature only works on Windows” disclaimer (thank you, Microsoft DRM), so I fired up VMWare and Windows XP, where I found out I had to upgrade a handful of programs (IE, Windows Media Player, who knows what else) to even get the thing to run (nope, wouldn’t work in Firefox either). Microsoft lock-in? Never heard of it! Bah. After going through the annoying and lengthy update routine, I was finally viewing the film.

Wait, I’ve digressed into an irritated anti-Microsoft rant. Sorry. Back to the topic at hand.

I sat glued to my screen for the next 80+ minutes, thoroughly enjoying this film. Beautifully shot and lovingly told, the story surprised me with its depth and appeal. I had no idea a typeface could take the leading role in a film, and do it so brilliantly. Particularly entertaining was watching how passionate both the Helvetica-loving and Helvetica-hating graphic designers are about its place in modern visual design (including some rants born from the universal designer spite toward the Microsoft-blessed ripoff of Helvetica, Arial). You could practically see the spittle fly in some of the interviews. (Next on Fox: When Graphic Designers Attack!)

And I had no idea just how ubiquitous this typeface has become in the past few decades. It’s everywhere.

Literally.

If you are an eLearning designer and you care at all about the visual impact of your learning content (and you should!), please buy/borrow/rent this film. It will surely increase your understanding and appreciation of visual design, something sadly neglected in most of the eLearning I’ve seen.

And if watching this film helps deter you from using Comic Sans in your eLearning courses, even better.

Addendum: for more typographical deliciousness, check out Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces of 2007.

Posted in Presentations, eLearning Design