Helvetica - PERIOD.

[EyeLean5280]

This movie is awesome! This guy is only one of many interviewees whose passions are inflamed by typeface!

[jrodjared]

I can't get enough of this guy!

[rockets543]

i wish there was more B roll, then maybe i'll understand what the heck he's saying.

[archergrl1996]

We watched this in Art class recently . . . everyone laughed at this part. It's now the joke amongst our grade. xD

[sueryun]

a little full of himself? ....yes

[EyeLean5280]

@sueryun - oh, lighten up! This guy is smart, funny and charming. Doesn't come off to me as "full of himself" at all. He just doesn't hesitate to use the English language beautifully - what's wrong with that?

[handelmeaghan]

this part cracked me up

[ufee]

The old ads are artistic, skillful and interesting. The new shit is boring and pretentious.

[Fosax]

@ufee The new thing goes directly to the point, which is something that sells more than 10 lines of text just to tell you to buy something.

[ufee]

@Fosax Yes, as soon as Coca-Cola started making boring ads they really took off. They certainly weren't the largest producer of soft drinks prior to the development of boring ads. No sir.

[Fosax]

@ufee The market changed, nowadays people don't have the time(and don't like) to through a large text on an ad, they have to go directly to the point, times have change, ads change too, stop living on the past.

[ufee]

@Fosax Living in the past? I'm not 70.

The Helvetica coke ad could easily be misconstrued as a Denny's ad. At least the first ad had the Coca-Cola logo. It was well placed and stood out from the rest of the graphic - Even if you ignored the entire page, your eye would catch the red coca-cola button-logo. That's how graphic design was done before hippies took over.

And people have plenty of time. That's why viral marketing works, and that's why people read magazines - to waste their time.

[Fosax]

@ufee Excuse me but i have no idea what a Denny's ad would look like, denny's is a local thing on the us, it's not on the rest of the world.

Just from seeing that entire cup of coke i knew it was a Coca-Cola ad, they're using it at their advance, makes the ad more "smooth".

There's a giant coke logo on the cup for crying out loud, you know it's Coca-Cola just for looking at it, this has much more impact than a button, since a filled cup would induce the wish of having a coke.

[aweisti]

At least he's not talking about comic sans

[whitesebi]

You could say it's overused, it's commercial, it's overused, it's non-expressive, it's dull, but when I see something that's minimalistic, simple, and you see the text in Helvetica bold with careful tracking and the right colours, it can be the most beautiful thing, and the most exciting thing. I saw a Freitag bag the other day with a massive Helvetica "R" on it, and I flipped out.

[whitesebi]

Hahahaha... this is fantastic, what a caracter.

[uberfunction]

Michael Beirut is awesome. I met him once and he's seriously the type of guy you would want to make your drinking buddy.

[magio677]

what an asshole, helvetica makes look all the same. fuck off

[unofficialdear]

I personally love the old ads he was showing, I guess because nowadays it has an old charm to it. I still love Helvetica, I love lots of fonts...well except for you guessed it.

[PeopleR2sensitive]

Helvetica is not supposed to emit emotion. It's only there for you to read the message given via an understandable medium. Makes you focus on the actual content rather than

the packaging.

I love typography and have tons of great fonts, Serif and Sans-Serif alike, but honestly helvetica is contemporary and to the point making it sleek and effective. Univers and Frutiger are other great Sans fonts that I love.

[wendileona]

@PeopleR2sensitive I beg to differ. Helvetica does emit a MOOD, its smart, clear, to the point, practical and if used with some thoughtfulness, elegant. The sad thing about Helvetica is that its become the defacto, or default go-to font typeface, without much consideration to the EMOTION or visual mood, the message Helvi will convey. Its become the easy typeface. Its like a 'front font' where its used by anyone to convey smarts or modernism regardless if truly appropriate or readable.

- Gary

[EyeLean5280]

@wendileona - Beautifully put, Gary.

[tsntana]

I can imagine this guy at a staff meeting. :)

[Exarian]

do you think any production papers were written in helvetica?

[tennyoAMV]

I giggle every time I see this part. :3

[Robinmaatman]

helvetica was modern, but that was over 40 years ago. Today its just become a hipe for the DIY designer. Graphic Design is continuously chancing. Iam a Graphic Design student in the Netherlands and i can say that there are so much more modern fonts and typeface designers out there today, that say so much more about the graphic design of today. Like Martin Majoor (FFscala and FFseria) or Gerard Unger (BigVesta and Allianz) and there are many more. i think its time to let helvetica go...

[DieMenschMaschine1]

Eh, I dunno about that. I still see Bodoni, Garamond, Baskerville, Clarendon. Futura & Gill Sans everywhere, and if Star Trek has taught me one thing, Microgramma and Univers will still be around 300 years from now... why not Helvetica? =P

[uberfunction]

@Robinmaatman Personally, I just try and avoid helvetica whenever I design.

[MesserschmittBf109g6]

Oh god this really is everything that is wrong with the modern sterile, flat, meaningless, clean and corporate look of almost everything in a nutshell, no life, personality or style at all. A shame really that Helvetica is the typeface of that look though, since it is not a bad typeface at all.

[PatchCornAdams721]

I love Helvetica every day! But I think lots of designers have lost their way now. People seem to have the idea that: "If it has Helvetica on it, it must be a good design." and there are sometimes simply more appropriate faces to use.

Helvetica will always be top of the pile for me though.

[DistantJ]

lol I remember this bit, this guy cracked me up.

Also his philosophy seems to be "graphic design means setting things in Helvetica".

[saintjasin]

love it

[HowBigArUrTires]

Helvetica PERIOD! o_0

[Radison1337]

Hey Bert, can you pass my glasses?

[monnywonk]

Smart guy, but he sounds like Ernie from Sesame St.

[vo7tage]

BOOM. Goes the Dynamite.

[gdibble]

It's the real thing.

;)

[Gesmehod]

high five if you couldn't stop thinking "helvetica scenario".

[Kenojuak]

I love the contempt and derision on his face as he describes the "goofy, bad" 1950s and Amalgamated Widget.

[fuckingsunday]

he's a graphic design nerd. period

love it

[dryheat80]

any questions? of course not. drink coke! period! simple.

bwa ha ha!!

[dryheat80]

any questions? of course not. drink coke! period! simple.

bwa ha ha!!

[crushhhhhh]

bahahahaha, I just said outloud what is this guy talking about and literally one second later he said "This is what I'm talking about" funnyyy stuff!

[Warlordx91]

saving the world from long useless phrases one magazine at a time PERIOD

[repose1983]

Brutalist design is no better than brutalist architecture. Bierut is a vandal.

[helloworldiloveyouso]

I thought this was a joke. It is not. And that is beautiful.

[SaltyTank07]

Michael Bierut is the man...

[GuitarKat5612]

You know that you should be seeing Helvetica here if you don't have Arial on your system. :) The CSS is a little ass backwards. ;)

[icebelly]

mhhh period

[rami29rami29rami29]

What is this guy's name? You are fucking cool, PERIOD.

[rhapsodyindrew]

Any questions? Of course not.

[ashleylies]

I love this guy! So passionate about typography!

[Sailorchica29]

This was the best part of the entire documentary... this guys freakin awesome.

[PilleDigital]

why do so many of you so called designers continue to use the term "font"? when you should know that the proper term is "typeface" when referring to just the set of characters.

[averagesketch]

THANK YOU! gah, no wonder design is being shot in the foot by idiot internet taught designers...

[skittlecrack89]

@PilleDigital

you're correct, but the terms have been skewed rather severely these days. people are now arguing that typeface means the entire family (ie, helvetica light, rounded, narrow etc...) and that font face is just one group and font style is the weight, size, etc...

so yes, you are correct and it kinda bugs me too that people say "font", but you're best not to get your panties in a bunch about it because few will understand when you say "typeface" anymore.

[Pointyhat]

The internet didn't kill print. Arrogant fucks like this did. He's not a typographer, Looking at hand-designed typefaces and perfectly registered color llustrations and calling them endemic bad habits. Just shows him for the Nazi he is.

[uberfunction]

@Pointyhat Not sure what you were getting at but before you spit out more senseless dribble, you should probably do a bit of research into the guy. Sure he might not have designed a typeface (he could of though but it's hard to find records of it) but this guy is probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to typography and the history of it.

[ikewithac]

he is PASSIONATE about helvetica. PERIOD.

[walagers]

I met Michael Bierut, not that it makes me special...but he is a very genuine person. Great designer!

[YoussefS]

The text your are reading right now, is Arial...

[outlawnoob]

this is epic

[coocoocacacoocoocaca]

i like the 50s ads.

[10mintwo]

he's right, for some reason people on the 50s liked to put squggly lines and small multicolored triangles all over everything. yuck.

[Velet66]

SRSBSNS

[SothThe69th]

HELVETICA PERIOD.

[metalhead3767]

Dude needs a life. Fonts arnt that exciting.

[kylejewett]

@metalhead3767 Typography is a massive part of graphic design. There are a fucktonne of font nerds, such as myself, out there. Just use google and find out for yourself.

[0multipass0]

people with passion are sexy

[z33k980m8]

DRINK. COKE. PERIOD. simple.

[borgorusky]

Haha....he really dislikes goofiness and engravings and even people in the designs..just a clean neat world of black on white swiss type. And COKE. Full Stop. Still, it was funny....

[HeyMrKindred]

2:23 there's Seth MacFarlane!!

[Inazumaa]

How does someone get so passionate about this one font?

[meaggo89]

this is amazing and i love it !

[sumiame]

"Coke. PERIOD."

[lm030588]

oh my gosh this guy is cracked, he needs to go to Helveticaland along with the other people from this documentary and sing songs by the fire about how they worship and love Helvetica

[uberfunction]

@lm030588 You don't have to be embarrassed. Only smart people get it. =)

[kehya]

this is definitely the funniest part of "Helvetica"

[bmxmyway]

the BEST part of the documentary PERIOD!

[chelipechile]

@bmxmyway you´re right PERIOD

[antoniosculptor]

got to be the best part of the movie this guy has a way with words!!!!

[vshwong]

I love this part of the movie the most. The way he says "Period" makes me laugh.