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Helvetica

Produced by Gary Hustwit in 2007.

Is it "informational" or "promotional"? support your argument.

I think this documentary is more informational rather than promotional although its all about themagic of a specific typeface. However, the goal of the movie is not to advertise this typeface. And

there is also no need to do so since Helvetica has already been everywhere. The director aims to

reflect the way type affects our lives through a typical example. The overal attitude is very

objective.

Who is the primary audience it aimed at?

The primary could be whoever has interest in graphic designer or typography, no matter with

professional knowledge in design or not. This documentary give people a sense of how graphic

design, especially typeface or font here, will affect peoples lives and why they matters.

What is the relevance of it to specific areas/topics of our course?

The most impressive point I take away from the documentary is that how we look or consider the

role of graphic design. It says graphic design can be considered as communication frame. It helps

to reach people. This is also what I learned from this class. Graphic design is to present and

prompt to transit information. It using visualized content to establish the bridge among we human

beings.

According to the film, how does type affects our lives?

Types themselves have power, indicated in the film. No matter what message is transited by types,

the fonts themselves could impact people and sometimes bias them, which is called prime

effects. Keeping the priming effects of different fonts consistent with the message the design want

to convey is very important. And Helvetica is an omnipotent because it is neutral and blends in

the context of design of all sorts perfectly.

Will you use Helvetica for your future graphic projects? (optional)

Yes, and actually I have already used Helvetica as the main font in some of my website project in

the past. The simple and legible characteristics of Helvetica may be the most important reason for

my choice.