Helvetica (Film)

Helvetica is a documentary film about typography and graphic design, told through the Helvetica font. In March 2007, the film for the 50th anniversary of the writing on the South by Southwest Film Festival premiered. Director Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker.

The film tells the story, dissemination and application of Scripture. Here, interviews with famous designers and typographers as Erik Spiekermann, Hermann Zapf, Neville Brody, Massimo Vignelli and Stefan Sagmeister are interspersed. The documentary aims to show how ubiquitous Helvetica in our lives. The German premiere took place in 2007 at the TYPO Berlin, the largest annual design conference in Europe instead.

A TV adaptation of the film was broadcast in November 2007 in the UK on BBC One. In the U.S., the documentation was sent in January 2009 on PBS.

In 2008, Helvetica was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and the Chlotrudis Award.

The film was released in November 2007 as a DVD, now it is also available on Blu- ray Disc.