helvetica the film.

Helvetica Birthday Cake

I finally saw it today! After months of waiting and fawning over mpegs on the website. I was all alone, in cinema 2 of the ICA. It was a Press preview for the DVD launch, and nobody turned up (apart from me.)

It was so good. A balanced combination of historical document, design theory and visual essay. A great tale of Western Europe's recovery from WWII, US corporate appropriation and the pendulum of taste. Now I have to write about it for Plan B so I'll post some more thoughts here soon.

One big surprise: The visual identity of Rotterdam came up! It turns out that a member of Experimental Jetset grew up there, and Wim Crouwel designed the all-encompassing Helvetica-heavy scheme. And this stamp:

(From David McFarline's stamp collection)