One of the disadvantages of living in the southern hemisphere is that many interesting things that happen in the rest of the world never make it here, and I was fearing that the screening of Helvetica was one of those. I didn’t want to buy the dvd and watch it at home since I wanted more of a social-typographic experience.
About a year after the release of the film & thank to the people from t-convoca, last Saturday I finally got to see the film just like I wanted: in a theater with a crowd of typography enthusiasts. It played at the Fundación Gutenberg Auditorium, and after the screening there was a little presentation about the soon to start Typography Biennial Tipos Latinos 2008. Thanks to those who brought the film to Buenos Aires!
The film was actually better than I expected. I already knew that many big designers were interviewed in the film, but I was happily surprised by the fact that it was not a Helvetica Love Fest. The film is a more realistic approach to the phenomenon -yes, a font that has become popular like a car make- and there’s people that love it and people than hate it and both are equally valid.
I have to say that I’m not a modernist (anyone can tell by looking at my work), but to me Neue Helvetica® is a terrific font family, though I’d die if I had to use it always, even with all the variants (51).
And finally, here’s my favorite of the family Neue Haas Grotesk: 35 Thin (super delicate & perfectly organic shaped)
I hadn’t seen Helvetica till I bought it for myself as a belated Christmas gift. It was a lot more interesting and entertaining than the typeface, which I haven’t willingly used in years. I mean, it’s a serviceable enough type, but so ubiquitous that it loses some impact.
When I first started using it—on my first Macintosh over 18 years ago already—I played with it as a face for resumes. And then, later, with my first book layout work, it would show up as a display head face and also for display equations and tabular material. But it became too visible to use on my own.
Now, for the first time in a few years I’m about to do another layout-only project—chemistry textbooks—that use a variation of it, the Helvetica Neue family and I’m eerily comfortable with it all over again.
This email correspondence is in response to 
seeing the film, Helvetica. October 6, 2008
To The Helvetica Film Team:
I recently had the pleasure of watching your movie,
Helvetica, and I thought that it was very good overall.
However, never once was Geigy Pharmaceutical and its
top graphic design team (many now in Helvetica Heaven
like Fred Troller, Theo Welti, Marcus Lowe and many
others.) mentioned in the role that Helvetica played in the
worldwide corporate identity (Branding) that Geigy
created using Helvetica. (In the beginning Geigy originally
had an exclusive contractual agreement for the use of
Helvetica to my knowledge) Geigy literally wrote the book
on Corporate/Brand Identity through their in-house design
group both in Basel and in the U.S. which many others
followed throughout the world and in many cases still
follow. We all have creative license to create history as
we choose and that is very acceptable here in the
colonies, but to have the Swiss designers who were
interviewed in your film leave Geigy out is astonishing. 

All the designers interviewed missed a valuable part of
Graphic Design History by leaving out the incredible
Graphic Design movement at Geigy, Basel. There has
been nothing like it since. Maybe you were aware of this
or maybe it was edited out…. but unfortunately many
young and growing designers have lost a valuable piece
of inspiring graphic design/type history needed in today’s
industry. Geigy In-House Design ( design/copy standards
continued through the merger of Ciba & Geigy ) played a
very important role in the use of
Helvetica globally in setting Swiss Design standards
including the grid, flush left, copy setting and copy writing
standards. Most of all, when design©= concept, the
audience would actually be GRABBED by the
combination of graphic+headline and would actually
READ stunning copy in an era of perfection and creativity
when design© ruled. In my opinion, you had the
opportunity to preserve a fabulous movement in global
graphic design© concept guided by Helvetica. Clean
& Simple… when marketing wasn’t a department and
design& copy had a godfather… or today when creativity
and democracy = mediocrity. It doesn’t have to be good
anymore… just good enough.
Thanks,
Bob Talarczyk,
Creative Director/CEO
Darkhorse Design, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Former Design Director, Producer Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals,U.S.A.
(this email was originally sent to the creators of Helvetica (the film) Swiss Dots, London with no response)