I was lucky enough to attend the Objectified screening this past Tuesday night, and I must say… as much as I really wanted to be in love with the film, it just didn’t grab me the way Helvetica did. This could be largely due to the subject matter; I’m a graphic designer, after all, and Helvetica (the font) has a very special place in my heart. But I think the issue I had with Objectified was more on a filmmaking level than based solely on the subject matter.
To me the most interesting thing about Helvetica was the depth in which designers would go to explain the subtle nuances, the importance, and their love of something that to most people comes off as incredibly trivial. And after all sorts of poetic musings about a designer’s love for a typeface, the film would jump to another designer with a radically opposing view; hatred for Helvetica so deep that one designer actually blamed the font for the war in Vietnam.
Objectified, on the other hand, really didn’t offer up a whole lot of point/counter point, nor did I feel like I got meaningful insight into the minds of some of the world’s top industrial designers. I left Helvetica feeling inspired, confused, educated and cynical all at the same time. I left Objectified needing more.
That being said, I strongly recommend everyone view the film and formulate their own opinion. The director, Gary Hustwit, has something special going on, creating films about subjects that have a very niche audience, but at the same time appeal to everyone. We all use products every day that we barely think about, and these products are the fruits of some design team’s labor. Supporting an independent film that gives these designers a forum to explain why they do, what they do and how they do it is really important to sustaining design as an art form (as well as sustaining independent filmmaking).
