Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

Helvetica (sort of) on BBC1 tonight

A shortened version of Helvetica will be broadcast as part of BBC1’s “Imagine” strand tonight at 10:35pm London time. In order to fit it into Imagine’s time slot, the BBC took out about 35 minutes… so there’s no Hermann Zapf, no Linotype guys, no Michael C. Place, no Norm, and lots of other cuts. Such is the way of broadcast television, I’m afraid. The full 80-minute version of the film will make it onto broadcast television in various countries soon, will keep you posted.

***Interesting side note: apparently there’s been some back and forth at the BBC about whether or not to include the shot of the skateboard that says “Fuck Yoga” on it (in Helvetica of course). The editors wanted to keep it in, but if so then they’ll have to run a warning before the show about the “strong language”. Heh heh… we’ll see what happens…

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Ma.gnolia] [StumbleUpon]
Posted by Gary

12 Comments »

  1. It looks like they kept the “Fuck Yoga” part, because on the BBC1 website it does say “Contains some strong language”. ;)

    Comment by Jelmar — Tuesday, November 6, 2007 @ 12:50 pm

  2. Fabulous programme - makes the BBC licence fee worth paying!

    Comment by Kamala — Tuesday, November 6, 2007 @ 6:38 pm

  3. I’m 99% sure that I have seen Fuck Yoga last night - About one second, a sort of sticker on a green background? Can someone confirm?

    Anyway, have this brilliant piece of documentary delivery right to your living room was just brilliant. I enjoyed myself yesterday on BBC1 -without gaps-, and look forward to see the 35 lost minutes soon. Missed the begining, but glad to see Rick Poynor speaking so clearly and have a laugh with Spiekermann quote: “But, you have to breathe, you have to use Helvetica”.

    Congrats and respecto to Gary & the whole team

    Comment by Pampa — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 6:20 am

  4. Yes it was there alright - the word ‘fuck’ looked great by the way…

    Comment by James — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 8:05 am

  5. In case anyone reading this is from London, the full film is on at the ICA from Nov 2 - 15, see the “screenings” section on the list above left.

    Comment by Caroline — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 10:20 am

  6. How cool was that - a programme on mainstream TV about type! It made an old font nut very happy. I’ll have to buy the DVD to see the remaining 35 minutes. Well done to Gary and all the team. (PS: I’m not that fond of Yoga either!)

    Comment by Steve — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 2:58 pm

  7. cool! i wanna see the long version

    Comment by Ian Loats — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 4:12 pm

  8. I have truly been blown away last night after having watched that piece. Absolutely fantastic.

    One of my ex-girlfriends studied graphic design at Bournemouth uni. She wrote one of her major pieces about helvetica. I read it when we first got together, but more through a desire to impress her than to gain an insight into this typeface. Over the time with her I did come to appreciate graphic design as something relevant to my daily life, but never looked much more into it than that.

    I’m an investment banker by trade, but the film really has awakened my creative side again. I’ve come to realise quite how much it does indeed come into my daily life and honestly I have spent the entire day looking at the world in a completely different way; rather than just letting these tides of design wash over me affecting me subconsciousness I have found myself dissecting and analysing what each sign, ad, piece of information is trying to tell me on that other level.

    As a subsequence of this I am actively considering (sound like an American politician there) enrolling in a graphic design course. So many, many thanks indeed and I will definately be making an effort to get down to ICA in the coming few days to get the scope on the whole film.

    Many thanks

    Comment by jonathan rees — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 5:41 pm

  9. Wow, thanks everyone! I’m so glad the film made sense (in its shortened state). By all means if you’re in London please check out the full film at the ICA.

    Thanks again for all the kind words. Cheers!

    -Gary

    Comment by Gary — Wednesday, November 7, 2007 @ 6:28 pm

  10. I saw the shortened version on BBC 1 and really enjoyed it.

    I penned this wee poem after the programme amd a bit of online research.

    All Hail

    Designed in a land of watch makers
    and chocolatiers. A Sixties child,
    everyone fell for Helvetica,
    her clean, functional clarity
    perfumed the world.

    She gave visible voice to the Beatles,
    NY’s subway, the dollar bill, till her sheer
    ubiquity caused her to fall from cutting
    edge grace.Smart young things dubbing her,
    the fascist font, type face of ‘Nam.

    Now she’s lite beer, vanilla ice cream,
    bus 5586, sensible shoes, the face
    of fuck yoga and stick no bills.
    A universal shift worker,
    with an aging tribute act called Arial.

    Comment by apprentice — Saturday, November 10, 2007 @ 12:26 pm

  11. Links to reviews from UK TV critics are posted here… http://typophile.com/node/38856 enjoy.

    Comment by Si — Sunday, November 11, 2007 @ 3:01 pm

  12. I always knew yoga was a bad word… :D

    BTW, I’m craving for great films as Helvetica… huh well I mean:great work!

    Comment by electronic Lou — Thursday, December 6, 2007 @ 10:37 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment