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Helvetica, a documentary
11–20 of 58 posts
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#12And if I may suggest: Articles of interest – suits[1]. Suits are in a lot of ways the helvetica of garments.
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-int...
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#13And if I may suggest: Articles of interest – suits[1]. Suits are in a lot of ways the helvetica of garments. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-int...
Great to see Articles of Interest here! As someone with minimal interest in fashion, I binged the whole thing while slabbing a garden. Fascinating!
Also... Over The Road. Another great podcast.
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#14From the about page [1]:
Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker and photographer based in New York....
In 2007 he made his directorial debut with Helvetica, the world’s first feature-length documentary about graphic design and typography. The film marked the beginning of a design film trilogy, with Objectified, about industrial design and product design following in 2009, and Urbanized, about the design of cities, in 2011. The films have been broadcast on PBS, BBC, HBO and television outlets in 20 countries, and have been screened in over 300 cities worldwide. Workplace, a documentary project about the future of the office, was commissioned for the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture. His most recent feature film, Rams, about German design legend Dieter Rams with original music by Brian Eno, was released in Fall 2018.
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#15In case you also liked the trailer soundtrack, here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kn4wUd3UDY
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#16I haven't watched Helvetica, but the same director also made Objectified which is fascinating look into the industrial design of everyday products. https://www.hustwit.com/objectified
Add Urbanized to that list too, it’s a really great look at how cities and their spaces are designed. He also recently produced Rams which I’ve not yet had a chance to see but I hope is on par with his previous work. And if you enjoy these films you’ll also likely appreciate the Abstract series which originally aired on Netflix.
Rams is great. Bought it on Vimeo shortly after it came out. You won’t regret it.
When Rams speaks about design, it always makes me reflect on modern software and how we’ve regressed so much. Though I think’s mostly as a single widget does 20 different things, which isn’t a great idea in the first place.
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#17I can strongly reccommend «Objectified», another one of Gary Hustwits documentaries. It features interviews with the legendary german industrial designer Dieter Ramms, where he praises Apple. It also has an interview with Jony Ive where he talks about the MacBook. «Urbanized» is also a good documentary from Hustwit, about urban design.
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#18I enjoyed learning the cultural context from which Helvetica emerged. In particular, I remember one man talking about how in the early 1900s, a company’s letterhead might have a floral font proclaiming The Inimitable Widgets, Gadgets, and Sprongdonacle Corporation of the Empire State. Then Helvetica comes along, and the company’s letterhead becomes Widgets Co. The same clean look mirrored in Mid-Century Modern and th…
That's the optimistic angle; the pessimistic is that Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party.
(Helvetia itself gained a fourth national language in 1938, due to comments made by someone who made his trains run on time; the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the involuntary pleasure of hosting, etc. etc.)
Maria Ivanova tells her class at the end of the day that they should find out what their ancestors did during the Great Patriotic War. The next morning, she calls on little Johnny. He says "My great-great-grandfather was electrician: his helmet had two lightning bolts..."
Edit: added involuntary, for clarity. Neemt u me niet kwalijk.
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#19And if I may suggest: Articles of interest – suits[1]. Suits are in a lot of ways the helvetica of garments. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/suits-articles-of-int...
From the textile viewpoint, suits are the copperplate of garments.
In many cultures, traditional wear can be made out of rectangles of fabric with minimal cutting and sewing. (consider the togas from "Animal House")
A suit used to say "I have so many rectangles of fabric, I can afford to waste most of them by cutting out irregular shapes and then sewing some fraction of the resulting pieces back together". (Now all it says is that I can afford the time to have someone take my measurements)
Re: Helvetica, a documentary
#20I enjoyed learning the cultural context from which Helvetica emerged. In particular, I remember one man talking about how in the early 1900s, a company’s letterhead might have a floral font proclaiming The Inimitable Widgets, Gadgets, and Sprongdonacle Corporation of the Empire State. Then Helvetica comes along, and the company’s letterhead becomes Widgets Co. The same clean look mirrored in Mid-Century Modern and th…
That's the optimistic angle; the pessimistic is that Helvetica grew in popularity due to its being nearly the polar opposite of a just-prior-to-mid-century use of Fraktur by a certain european political party. (Helvetia itself gained a fourth national language in 1938, due to comments made by someone who made his trains run on time; the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbour…
> the dutch reformed their spelling in 1947 to distance their language from a neighbouring country in the same language family who they had had the pleasure of hosting
Sorry, what are you trying to say here? The Dutch had the pleasure of hosting what exactly?