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Helvetica the typeface, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. To honor the modern type, Gary Hustwit directed Helvetica the movie, which premieres tomorrow at SXSW.
Hustwit, who produced Moog a doc about electronic music pioneer Robert Moog and the award winning I Am Trying to Break Your Heart about the band Wilco, interviews a slew of designers including Erik Spiekermann, who created Nokia's current typeface along with the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts called FontShop. Wim Crouwel, featured in the bottom clip is known for designing the dot-matrix based New Alphabet font in 1967, and former art director of The Face Neville Brody is featured in the clip directly below.
This isn't the first time the sans-serif was put in the spotlight. In 2002, Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface was published.
What's your fave typeface and why? I'm a big fan of Edwardian Script ITC. I have it tattooed behind my ear with my dog's name. The type makes "Ls" look so feminine and light. A good thing when you have ink right next to your face.
