Season 2011

In the past several years documentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit has made a trio of fascinating movies about design: Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. Taken as a whole they explore design in an elaborate fashion, ranging from the small (with Helvetica discussing graphic design and its tiniest details in typography) to the very large (cities and city planning in Urbanized). Hustwit is at his best when emphasizing the small details.—from the pixel of Helvetica’s computer screens to the chairs and cars of Objectified to the roads and buildings of Urbanized—not a single detail will be missed. Every piece of our world, from smallest to biggest, is accounted for and explored for the vast amounts of thought, creativity, and pain that goes into its realization. Hustwit’s greatest accomplishment is that, with great humor and grace, he makes it so you can’t (or at least don’t want to) take anything for granted or look at things in the same way ever again.