One of the most fascinating movies I watched recently was a documentary called Helvetica. As you can guess, it is a movie about a font. However, it doesn’t confine itself to just the history of the typeface; it also explores the transition of the graphic design world into Modernism and then Post-Modernism. To me, the independent film was completely engrossing because I am a designer by hobby, and fonts have always been a little pleasure of mine. I would consider myself more obsessive than most people when it comes to typefaces and choosing which one should be used in which situation. The best part of the movie is that it teaches you to recognize Helvetica and where it is often used. Afterwards, even the least typophile person will start searching for it everywhere in town and think about how design affects the way we are manipulated by brands. I highly recommend this movie to everyone, but if you are a graphics designer, you absolutely must watch this film. The interviews with the biggest names in design are very intriguing and thought provoking. This movie is a pleasure to watch.
Did I mention that the soundtrack is great, too?
The lens I made about Helvetica is the first lens I made under the Squidflix co-brand. I am undecided about the layout, but I thought the Magicbuild was ridiculous. I spent a lot of time filling out the form for the Magicbuild only to have the resulting lens be like some crazy teen fan site. It felt completely inappropriate for the atmosphere I wanted. In the end, I deleted all of the modules and started fresh. I didn’t want to make a “We Love Helvetica” lens; I wanted to make a good movie review site. This lens may be the longest lens I have yet since I tried using the blackbox module for the first time. I think the effect is quite nice. The major thing I don’t like about the Squidflix layout style is the inability to see what the tags on the page are, either on the right column or at the bottom. Hence, it seems like I don’t get links back to those tag pages. I wonder if there’s a way to determine whether that is a disadvantage.
