I saw the SF premier of Helvetica last night and I had to run out during the Q&A to catch the last Bart train, but the question I wanted to ask Gary was, at what point in the making of [[Helvetica]] (the film) did he realize this was not a film about a typeface, but about a commentary about the design and cultural landscape we live in (and that we are products of)? His film is really, really much more than I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be much more academic and historic. It was so much more than that. Helvetica is so much more than a typeface, it's a cultural landmark and Gary Hustwit's film put it into great context.

It was so great to see footage of [[Massimo Vignelli]] extolling Helvetica and the AmericanAirlines mark (that he designed, in Helvetica) put back to back with the Helvetica detractors.

The other question I would ask is: What is your Helvetica story?

In design school I had this fear of Helvetica, everybody did. And then I discovered it accidentally when I fell in love with a [[Bitstream]] face called [[Swiss]] (I was a sophomore; it was an easy mistake.) It was great and I spent a whole semester using it. Then in my career it was easy to ignore Helvetica until BMW's brand guidelines dictated it and again I saw it's merits.

If I were a design instructor, this film would be required material. Kudos again to Gary.