Helvetica, stereotype and society

A video.

Red is not funny

Tyler Helms shows us how red is not funny.

Paula Scher "Type is image"

Paula Scher, finalist of the National Design Awards for 2007 in graphics, shows how the type can be image, check it out.

Trollbäck + Company creates titles, animates for director Gary HusTwit’s feature film Helvetica

New York-based visual and conceptual creative studio Trollbäck + Company recently worked with veteran producer and first-time director Gary Hustwit on Helvetica, his in-depth look at the proliferation of the ubiquitous typeface, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. With company founder Jakob Trollbäck as associate producer, the feature-length documentary also benefits from titles, animations, and motion graphics from Trollbäck + Company.

“I called Gary and offered to help the very second I heard that he was working on a film about Helvetica,” says Trollbäck, who’s company publicly confessed its devotion to the typeface with www.HelveticaLove.com, a website initially set up as a typographic tongue-in-cheek contribution to the Sex issue of Print magazine. “To me, Helvetica is The Well-tempered Clavier of typefaces. Like all typefaces it can be misused—but there is no denying the effortless beauty of it. It is a brilliant topic for a documentary.”

More than a film about typography, Helvetica looks at the evolution of graphic design and, in turn, global visual culture. An exploration of how urban spaces are organized and identified through design and communication, the film also draws on renowned designers to consider their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type. “This was an amazing project to work on,“ says Emre Veryeri, designer at Trollbäck. “It allowed us to work with design and material by iconic designers and artists, and ultimately it’s an honor that our work is integral to the presentation.”

“We were mainly focusing on titles at first,” says Veryeri. “Eventually, the internal graphics became increasingly vital to the project. We sought, through our animations and graphics, to support the dialogue and make visual connections between the designers’ work.”

The final editing of Helvetica, a production of Swiss Dots in association with Veer, took place at Trollbäck + Company’s studio. This simplified the process and made it very collaborative as Hustwit and editor Shelby Siegel were making their final editorial choices . “It was great working with everyone at Trollbäck + Company on this project,” says Hustwit. “Motion graphics sequences are like mini-narratives that tell a story using type, and the people at T + Co are master storytellers in that sense. They do such amazing work, and it was an honor to have them involved in the film.”

Shot entirely in HD, the film combines footage from the United States, England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. The film premiered this month at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and will continue to screen at film festivals around the world. The sold-out AIGA-sponsored New York screening on Friday, April 6 at the Tishman Auditorium of The New School was followed by a panel with the director and special guests from the film, including associate producer Jakob Trollbäck. April 6 also marked the opening of “50 years of Helvetica”, the MoMa exhibition dedicated entirely to Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman’s design classic.

“This film will be big for the design community,” says Veryeri. “It’s both thoughtful and thought-provoking and will therefore appeal to the general public as much as to typography and design geeks like us.”

Type Animation

Following the success of the Pulp Fiction type animation, curiously not posted on this site (until now), here are some more videos for you to see.



Kapitaal by Studio Smack



Why don´t we?



What Jesus did



What Barry says



Not my type



Brasil by MK12



Renascent



The Hush Sound - The Lions Roar

Neville Brody at ESAD - Video

ESAD has updated Personal Views with a video from Neville Brody conference.
The next one to speak is Spiekermann on April, 13. (Entrance Free)

Designing multi lingual OpenType fonts

Thomas Phinney (Adobe's Product Manager for Fonts & Global Typography at Image iT, Bologna, Italy) talks about designing pan-european OpenType fonts.

Wim Crouwel Interview

Interview with Dutch graphic designer and typographer Wim Crouwel at Galerie Anatome in Paris, 02/2007, from Etapes.

The word factory

This is funny!... :D
Liam Johnstone brings us a great animation that explains how our language is put together as one film crew enters a modern word factory to document the everyday lives of the twenty six letters who work there.

Akzidenz Grotesk

I found this video dedicated to Akzidenz. :)

Akzidenz Grotesk is a realist sans-serif typeface originally released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1896. Contemporary versions of Akzidenz Grotesk descend from an early-1950s project, directed by Günter Gerhard Lange at Berthold, to enlarge the typeface family, adding a larger character set, but retaining all of the idiosyncrasies of the 1896 face. Some new weights, condensed and extended widths were released under the title Standard. While Günter Gerhard Lange sought to academically retain Akzidenz Grotesk's imperfections, Max Miedinger's 1957 Swiss typeface Helvetica, used it as a model but sought to refine the typeface making it more even and unified. Akzidenz Grotesk also influenced Adrian Frutiger's 1958 typeface Univers. Akzidenz Grotesk is the first sans serif typeface to be widely used.

Akzidenz is sometimes at first glance mistaken for the Helvetica or Univers typefaces. The similarities of Helvetica and Akzidenz are apparent, but the subtle differences include the uppercase and lowercase C, and the uppercase G J, R, and Q:

You can find more about Akzidenz Grotesk Roots at Typophile.

Source: lletraorama and Wikipedia.

Proceed and Be Bold: Bringing Race and Art to the Masses

A letterpress printer who makes affordable art (6 min. video).

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is a letterpress printer, papermaker and builder of artist's books. His work embodies his passion for stirring up strong emotions andencouraging people to think in previously unexplored ways. Only his friends know that in a past life he was a computer programmer and can thus juggle digital and analog at will. In addition to his work as a bookbuilder, he is an educator and performance artist and currently the Artist in Residence at the Coleman Center of York, Alabama.

Visit his site at www.kennedyprints.com and don´t miss the Gallery.

I found the "Printing Specs" very amusing:

Printing is what we do. You send the text and a check, and go home and pray. We do not know what will happen until we are at the press. The design of your poster is determined in real time. Sometimes we produce beautiful posters and at other times we produce BEAUTIFUL posters. [...]

(more)

The Child

An oldie from the 90's: The Child.
A city made entirely by type. Video created by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet for the french dj Alex Gopher.

Typographie-Bougies

Beautiful video by Christian Wilmes & Sophie Bocqueho.
Here´s the Making of:

80 of 500 handdrawn posters

80 of 500 handdrawn typographic posters by Job Wouters are shown in a 3 minute filmclip by Roel Wouters. The posters promote the students final works at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The handwriting... beautiful.

Typography School

Veteran graphic design/typography and letterpress teacher from the London College of Printing: David Dabner talks... giving an insight into the principles of design, creative letterpress and why computers make students sloppy.

Helvetisation

TV Type

A film covering the basics of typography, as well some nice set of rules to apply type on a low resolution screen, like a normal TV.
In Spanish, but pretty easy to follow anyway.

Gary Hustwit has a blog

Helvetica film director Gary Hustwit now has a blog!
Also check out the updates at the site. David Carson and Paula Scher will be in the film, representing the "anti-helvetica" side. Interesting! :)

In the picture: Rhoda the dog.

TYPO Berlin Video Podcast

You can watch online or subscribe with iTunes.
They will update this at regular intervals :) Stay tuned!
Now online:
Ralf Grauel/TYPO 2005/Change
Jill Bell/TYPO 2005/Change
Neville Brody/TYPO 2005/Change
Chip Kidd/TYPO 2006/Play
Kalle Lasn/TYPO 2006 Keynote/Play

Old School Printing

I found this video on letterpress (via PBS Newstoday).
A Great Christmas to all of you! :)