March 18, 2008

>> Helvetica. the movie

Helvetica is a documentary about the typeface, helvetica. The movie includes interviews with several well known designers such as; Erik Spiekermann, Matthew Carter, Massimo Vignelli, Wim Crouwel, Hermann Zapf, Neville Broday, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Bierut, David Carson, Paula Scher, Jonathan Hoefler, Tobias Frere–Jones, Alfred Hoffman, and many more. This movie gives a lot of information on the typeface, the history, the designer Max Miedinger, and also shows several places where helvetica can be found. I enjoyed the part of the movie that showed logos and signs where helvetica was used because a lot of things that I see everyday I completely overlooked when I was taking photos of helvetica for another journal entry. Some parts of the movie were kind of strange to me. For example, when they said you can use helvetica to say I love you or I hate you... I was kind of like ugh yeah you can use any font to say that. Overall, it was an interesting movie, I like that I could recognize some of the designers from other videos, talks i have seen.

p.s. massimo vignelli's eyebrows are out of control

#1– graphic design is a way to visually communicate a concept/idea through the combination of image and type. graphic design is constantly changing and expanding through the enthusiasm of designers contributing to the field. it is a way to send a message through careful research and exploration. it is a way to uniquely display the ideals/meaning/intentions of the company/organization or whatever you are designing for.
#2– typography is the use of text in a visually pleasing way to complete a concept and communicate a story
#3– my responsibilities as a design student are to research, explore, and expand my knowldege of design history in order to understand graphic design to help me create the best solutions possible and get a better understanding of what works and what does not.
#4– to get the most out of my VisCom classes it is important for me to ask questions, ask for constructive criticism and learn from others. it is important to do a lot of process work and refinements in order to achieve the best solutions. it is also important for me to give feeback and brainstorm with other students in order to help eachother reach the best solutions