Helvetica the Movie

There is a widespread, cultish belief that Helvetica the Movie NEEDED to be made, or should have already been made, or that there should be infinitely more documentary films about fonts made, in general, all the time. This is wrong.

Helvetica has flavoured certain visual landscapes for fifty years, obviously, but Helvetica is no more or less significant than the household brick. The brick too has dictated our visual landscape, more so, but the brick hasn’t inspired Brick the Movie, nor will it, for the simple reason that bricks don’t attract wankers, and fonts do.

In 2005, I made a film called James Tiberius Font. I had created a typeface based entirely on William Shatner’s facial expressions, then fed this font through random TV footage — CNN, Sale of the Century, Home Improvement — thus replacing all on screen letters (news crawl, etc.) with the James Tiberius Font, which would ultimately be edited to a soundtrack of “Come on, Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners and described by audiences as a laugh riot. Which it was. This film didn’t NEED to be made, but it was fucking cool. Because fonts are inherently cool. Helvetica the Movie is inherently cool. It isn’t necessary, but no art is actually necessary.

More Helevtica debate occurs in my interview with “Death to Helvetica” creator Stephen Banham in issue 3 of T-World.

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