Helvetica

Helvetica celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. You may not know the name, but you'll almost certainly know the face: the typographic identity of Orange, Muji, British Gas and many more, it's probably the most popular font in existence. Photograph: Lars Muller

Director Gary Hustwit has made a documentary about the life of Helvetica, tracing its history and presence around the world. His film, shot on a credit-card budget and made up of interviews with designers and typographers, has become a global phenomenon. Photograph: Lars Muller

The idea for the film came, Hustwit says, when he was wandering the streets of New York and spotted the typeface all around him, notably on the city's subway system. Photograph: Lars Muller

'I was walking around, looking at the type and the way people interacted with it, and I just saw the whole film in my head. I wanted to do a documentary about graphic design, and I thought - well, Helvetica is the most ubiquitous typeface in our lives,' says Hustwit. Photograph: Lars Muller

In the film, one of Hustwit's interviewees, the writer Lars Muller, takes a stroll around London pointing gleefully at traffic signs, shopfronts and notices - it turns out the city is nearly as full of Helvetica as New York. Photograph: Lars Muller

For all that, and as the film reveals, Helvetica is indelibly associated with the country whose Latin name it pays tribute to: Switzerland, where a new movement in graphic design first took root in the 1950s. Photograph: Lars Muller

In 1957 Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman of the Haas foundry in Münchenstein. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica went global almost at once. Photograph: Lars Muller

Part of the point of making a documentary about all this, Hustwit explains, is to put faces to the names of great designers whose work surrounds us every day but whose identities remain more or less unknown. Photograph: Lars Muller

'When I started this project,' Hustwit says, 'I couldn't believe that a film like this didn't exist already, because these people are gods and goddesses.' Photograph: Lars Muller

Graphic design is no longer the province of specialists, but available to anyone with a word processor. 'All these things that were the realm of professional designers 10 years ago are now being done by eight-year-olds,' says Hustwit. Photograph: Lars Muller

'The more people are exposed to graphic design, the more they appreciate it,' says Hustwit. Perhaps this man should get along to a screening ... Photograph: Lars Muller