Next Thursday, June 5, at 6:00 pm, you can come to the IMA and catch a documentary called Helvetica. Yep—it’s a whole 80 minutes of font porn. Director Gary Hustwit premiered the documentary on the fiftieth anniversary of the ubiquitous typeface, prevalent in urban centers everywhere for its clean, communicative ease. Think of the “el” signs in Chicago.

My husband couldn’t believe there was a whole film about one font. What’s the plot, he asked, an epic smackdown between Helvetica and Times New Roman, while crazy Comic Sans plots to sabotage them all? Sort of, I replied. Fonts are dramatic. They harbor visual memories (the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup font is childhood itself), deftly evoke history (from 1930s Art Deco to the Wild West), and keep social systems flowing (imagine a green highway sign in Freestyle Script…there would be wrecks galore).

Thursday night’s film screening is presented in collaboration with the IMA Design Arts Society and the AIGA Indy (local chapter of the American Institute for Graphic Arts) – two groups working to raise the design bar in our city.

Helvetica is part of a Design Film Series at IMA that continues June 12—with a selection of short films from the Ray & Charles Eames industrial design empire. Grandson Eames Demetrios will fly by to introduce the films. Then on June 19, come see a film about Sir John Soane, a 19th century English architect who influenced 20th century architecture whizzes such as Philip Johnson and Michael Graves.

All films start at 6:00 in DeBoest Lecture Hall and are free. See you there. But meanwhile, feed the font beast and leave me a comment about your psychological adventures with typeface.