Ahhh, my Husband. Sometimes you just have to laugh at those goofy creative types. He’s spent the entire last month working his cute little petunias off on this massive work project. Last week he did a couple 18 hours and several 14’s. When he finally finished over the weekend, he looked like he had no idea what to do with himself.

Naturally, sitting down to watch a movie sounded like a relaxing idea, so he popped in a movie, fired up the DVD player, and up came…. Helvetica. As in the type font, Helvetica. My husband rented an entire documentary on a font and decided that watching it would be a good way to unwind after a month of not leaving his office.

It occurred to me that perhaps he rented this as some sort of visual tranquilizer or sleep aid; but no, he actually sat and watched the entire thing in fascination. I, on the other hand, watched half an hour or so (had to at least try) before retired to the bedroom to read my book on The Shipwreck of the Medusa (which isn’t the most interesting book either. Made a good tranquilizer….).

A font! Yes, my sweet Hubby is a graphics guy through and through. Everything he sees, thinks, or does is filtered through his internal graphics card, so I suppose I could see how he might find this subject matter appealing. Plus, I’d much rather have him enjoying oddball documentaries once in awhile than gluing himself to the TV for months on end watching one or more varieties of sports.

The part that I saw did contain some interesting information. For instance, the creation of the Helvetica font in 1957 was solely responsible for the change in print advertising that occurred between the 50’s and 60’s. Prior to Helvetica, advertisements were  hand-drawn cartoon people with hand-drawn lettering. After the advent of Helvetica, ads became much more sleek with photographs of the product above a typed tagline or description (in Helvetica, of course).

Interesting information, however, does not always necessitate a feature-length movie. If you are into graphical presentation of any sort, this movie may well appeal to you. Otherwise, it makes a pretty good sedative.

Rachel

P.S. Actually, George did celebrate the project completion appropriately on Saturday night by going to the Van Halen concert with our friend Mike. They both seemed to vastly enjoy pretending they were eighteen for a few hours.

LMHO, reminds me of when Alex rented some construction documentary and wanted me to drive the truck so he could watch it on the 4 hour trip to Edmonton. He ended up deciding it was boring about halfway through and drove the rest of the trip for me.