Typophile - Helvetica: the DVD - Comments

Sometimes people who have

fontplayer — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:05:48 -0700

Sometimes people who have some challenge end up with a chip on their shoulder.

I use to have a mild case of it before Adobe started making an equivalent version of Photoshop for PC (some of you youngsters might not remember this. I think it was around version 3?).

Just because I was handicapped by Windows 95, was that any reason to heap it on? I submit that it was not, and thankfully Adobe finally realized it.

And it’s just a guess, but I bet they are selling as many PC versions as Mac now.

David- Too right.

Eben Sorkin — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:10:46 -0700

David- Too right.

Wow... Joe, I truly

dberlow — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 03:51:05 -0700

Wow... Joe, I truly appreciate your opinions on this, but the tone of your manifesto is really disappointing

Danger. Do not feed or starve Joe Troll. Danger. Do not crit his content. Danger. Your web site could be attacked if you engage. Danger. Do not discuss typography. Danger.

Chores!

I should have separated my

DanGayle — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:40:51 -0700

I should have separated my comment about Carson from my comment about Spiekermann. I noticed it afterward, but I was hoping that no one would notice ;)

So yeah, you’re right. Spiekermann’s interview was thoroughly entertaining in its irreverence for the subject matter. Audiences should certainly like him, as well as Carson, if only because they don’t represent that cool, detached modernism of most of the rest of the flic.

DanGayle wrote “At least

Jem — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 17:08:42 -0700

DanGayle wrote
“At least Carson wouldn’t put the audience to sleep.”

The last thing Spiekermann could ever be accused of is putting people to sleep!

Wow... Joe, I truly

swiss dots — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:23:04 -0700

Wow... Joe, I truly appreciate your opinions on this, but the tone of your manifesto is really disappointing. You’re basically venting on the entire home video industry’s approach (or lack thereof) to accessibility, and focusing it on me and this film. When I said I’d discuss DVD accessibility with you when I met you at the Toronto screening, I meant excactly that, that we’d discuss it, that I wanted your input. But I refuse to feel that if I can’t incorporate every single one of your “suggestions,” then I’m irresponsible and uncaring.

In the manifesto you’ve woven in comments and attitudes from other people, not me, including some quotes from others in this thread. Again, you’re venting on others here, but blurring it and transferring it to me. Every time you use the term “you,” you’re accusing me of something... like I’ve been oppressing deaf and blind people for decades??? Jesus, I just made a little film about Helvetica. C’mon, Joe. I know your heart is in the place on these issues, but I don’t like getting publicly attacked for things I haven’t done, and for opinions that aren’t mine.

The plan has always been to have subtitles on the disc, and I’ll do the best I can to take your suggestions into account regarding their quality and legibility. And I guess I forgot to mention in the email I sent you that I personally transcribed the film for the subtitles, so there won’t be any spelling errors. I’ll make the DVD as accessible as I can, given the budget and time constraints that any independent film producer is always under. And on that front, are there any documentaries on DVD, self-released by independent producers, that have adhered to every one of the requirements of the Clark Manifesto?

Again, I think your heart’s in the right place here, Joe. But blaming me publicly, with the tone you’ve taken, for all the frustrations of disabled people when it comes to enjoying films is misplaced.

Cheers,

-Gary

Since the accessibility

joeclark — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:09:03 -0700

Since the accessibility issue has taken a life of its own even without me, I thought I’d write a Helvetica accessibility manifesto, though I wonder why I had to.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Thanks Quincunx, for

mili — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:53:15 -0700

Thanks Quincunx, for clearing it for me. I’m not that clever with the tech text, so I missed that :^P

> Oh, I hope the DVD coding

Quincunx — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:10:32 -0700

> Oh, I hope the DVD coding is international, so that one doesn’t have to change the DVD player’s country code.

On the site it says ’NTSC Region 0’, which is International. :)

@ Joe + Geoff Riding yes, of

russellm — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:23:12 -0700

@ Joe + Geoff Riding

yes, of course.

:P I really didn’t imagine anyone would take that comment seriously enough to offer a thought-out reply.

I was plainly referring to what one might imagine is the demographic for this film. I do believe it’s most obvious appeal is to people with an active interest in visual design, which kind implies a certain lack of serious visual impairment - Granted, exceptions exist, but I just went ahead and made a vast over-reaching generalization anyhow. And, yes, attention should be paid to the design of captioning and subtitles. I thought that here, that would be obvious.

joeclark: There is some

Geoff Riding — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:04:46 -0700

joeclark: There is some dispute at present over whether or not what you will get in English will be captions, and of what quality, or “subtitles” in Arial Narrow.

Hmm, I asked whether it was English captions just to make sure it wasn’t English language with German subtitles, i.e. subitles only when German is spoken but no captions for English dialogue. This happens often on foreign films, “Japanese and English subtitles” displays only Japanese subtitles. Frustrating for those who are deaf or hard of hearing.

russellim: It’s not like the audience, made up almost entirly of designers is blind, Joe.

There are 2 million Australians who are either deaf or hard of hearing out of a population of 21 million, we’re not exactly a minority market-wise.

I often read people that

x-y — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:08:32 -0700

I often read people that don’t like helvetica and oppose univers to it, just saying it’s so much better. For me, this is the result of a misunderstood of modernism and what swiss designers where trying to achieve at this time, and still. There has already been a long talk here about helvetica and i don’t want to start the fight again :)

What is really really interesting about a Frutiger interview is that he could help people to understand what modernism was looking for. For me, one of the most interesting thing (i think it’s in the movie his son made) is the comparison with water. The look for the purity of the form is an essential idea in modernism. With helvetica this purity has been sold as neutrality, meaning you can use it for anything what, i agree, is wrong. But helvetica and univers (and most of frutiger faces) achieve to reach this purity, this “universality” of the shape, each by different ways. I like both.

Edit: okay Gary, thanks for the explanation. My point was absolutely not to say something was missing or incorrect in your movie and i hope you did not feel it this way.

RussellM, a name and initial

joeclark — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:02:01 -0700

RussellM, a name and initial that seems vaguely familiar in some hard-to-define way, blind people don’t watch captioning. The question of audio description is a different one and I can assure you that visual artworks are described all the time (check many U.S. museums). If we can describe Solaris we can describe anything.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Thanks Gary! A reasonable

DanGayle — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:47:53 -0700

Thanks Gary! A reasonable answer, certainly. I’m looking forward to the Director’s Cut!

Maybe someone can speak to

swiss dots — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:36:44 -0700

Maybe someone can speak to this further, but I got the sense when I was originally contacting people about the film that Frutiger wasn’t doing interviews anymore, for health reasons... or maybe he’s just plain reclusive now. And his nephew did do that piece for German television about him a few years back.

I’ll have to go back through the extras and check on Univers shout outs. Crouwel discussed it, and of course there were mentions of Univers during the other interviews we did, but getting into Univers in any sort of in-depth way in the film required a lot more back-story, showing examples, how it differs from Helvetica, who Frutiger was. There’s only so much you can do in 80 minutes, and in order to try to keep things focused on Helvetica, we decided not to go down that route. Ditto with Arial.

But I’m sure there are several examples of Univers in the film anyway, on street signs, etc... a few had to have slipped in. So get the pause button on your remotes ready...

Cheers,

-Gary

Helvetica: the DVD

swiss dots — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:18:22 -0700

Hello all, just a note to let you know that the Helvetica film DVD is now available for pre-order. More info here: http://www.helveticafilm.com/shop.html

The DVD includes 95 minutes of bonus material... we basically edited 41 short interview segments, each around two to five minutes long. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll have an idea of the format of these.

We’ll definitely post Quicktimes of several of them in the next few weeks... any requests?

Cheers,

-Gary

Helvetica DVD Bonus Features:

Massimo Vignelli:
On his introduction to graphic design
The 1972 New York Subway map
Post-modernists and the “flower children”

Wim Crouwel:
His “Proposal for a New Alphabet”
Pencil vs. Mouse
The audience for good design

Matthew Carter:
How technology has affected type design
The Neue Haas Grotesk specimen book
On the reader’s awareness of typefaces

Mike Parker:
On Helvetica and Jackson Burke

Otmar Hoefer and Bruno Steinert on how they got involved in type

Bruno Steinert on Helvetica and the Macintosh

Hermann Zapf:
On his career
Thoughts on Helvetica

Hoefler and Frere-Jones:
Font stories
Their specimen book collection
The Gotham project

Erik Spiekermann:
Typomaniac
My favorite letter is…
His approach to design
On Arial…

Neville Brody:
The Face and Arena
The role of typography in advertising

Michael Bierut:
On Helvetica and branding

Paula Scher:
The “mean” Modernists
Technology and her design process
On record cover design

Stefan Sagmeister:
On music packaging
One typeface is not enough
On designing for an audience

David Carson:
His approach to design
Thoughts on Helvetica

Danny van den Dungen:
The origin of the name Experimental Jetset
The relationship between designer and subject matter
On punk rock and Modernism

Michael C. Place:
The value of good design
On the public’s awareness of graphic design
Brockmann gets in the picture

Norm:
The Simple typeface
Favorite letters

Rick Poynor:
The future...