Being a designer is a curse. You can’t just take your surroundings for granted. Letters and words from signs, ads and discarded packaging jump out at you from all directions. Some dazzle with their well-crafted beauty, but many assault the eyes with poor kerning and mismatched styles. Most of my friends snicker at my graphic sensitivity while blissfully ignoring the hodgepodge of visual clutter surrounding them. So hooray for this eloquent documentary on the most ubiquitous yet anonymous element of the design dimension: Helvetica. Gary Hustwit somehow made a film about the history and use of a single font that will interest more than just die-hard typophiles. Much of this success is from letting the star speak for itself through lots of examples found in “the wild.” As we make the visual connection between countless familiar logos, labels and other ephemera, several generations of top designers discuss Helvetica’s pervasiveness. Ironically, being so generic and faceless is what helps it absorb and enhance a seemingly endless variety of flavors, sort of like visual tofu. The same lettering that makes world banks seem legit also gives Urban Outfitters its postmodern cheekiness. Helvetica does have its detractors, like Erik Spiekermann who hilariously curses its blandness and Paula Scher who likens it to a fascist regime. But most of the interviewees praise its malleable perfection, demonstrating how it has become the voice of many movements and styles for fifty years. The film will doubtless open many people’s eyes to the typeface’s omnipresence, stepping out of the shadows to greet them at every turn. What sweet revenge!

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