About Typography by Adriano Mescia

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A study of classic Swiss style works reveals a strong attention of graphic designers to uniform design elements and strong geometric shapes. Graphic artists have experimented with abstrac never be underrated. It’s a very important element for both visual impact and readability. It feels quite inviting when a web page is laid out in such a fashion that the organization of the page people pursue organization is by having markers that separate the different parts of the site: in web design icons and illustrations are used to separate various types of content. But Swiss st content is the interface’ wisdom.Grid SystemsA grid system is a rigid framework that is supposed to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organization of informatio more rigid and coherent system for page layout. The core of these ideas were first presented in the book Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann which helped to spread There are many resources on the subject, one of them is an article by your own Smashing Magazine: Designing With Grid-Based Approach. You may want to take a closer look at it if you want framework. However, upon a further examination we can see that grids are more than just the art of placing elements; there’s a subtle layer of semantic organization of data which, despite not case that the disposition of the information extrapolates the realm of graphic layout and starts hinting on the meaning of data and how various chunks of data relate to each other.The abuse o great solution for collections of similar data, but ULs and OLs do not define any kind of relation between this data. Helvetica was disegned by a Swiss, Max Meideger, and first produced by th individual forms and without personal idiosynerasies.”Helvetica is a “san serif”, as it lacks the little extra strokes, called serifs, at the end of its letters’ main strokes. Since serifs lead the eye precisely because it’s so easy to read. As Ed Benguiat, a leading typeface designer and the art director of Photo Lettering, Inc., says, “You don’t read the word, you read power...For that one or descibe Helvetica as “contemporary,” “easy to read,” “easy to read,” “nonsense,” “neutral”, and even “cold.” The first word that comes to their lips, though, is “clean.” It is not surprising, then, th Photographs of them were exhibited at the Louvre and at the Museum of Modern Art. Kacik chose Helvetica, he said, “because it was the best of the san serifs and it didn’t detract from the kin (“You durty, rotten, two-timing dame!”). Cleaning up images is the main business of some marketin and design firms. Probably the most influential of them is Lippincott and Margulies (L&M). It i change itself is in order - L&M gave us such newspeak sounds as Amtrak, Pathmark, Cominco, and Uniroyal.) In its own brochures (in Helvetica), L&M denies that it offers “face-lifts” or “stan soundproof-room confidentiality, and its scientific bent, L&M might be regarded as a corporate shrink. L&M’s list of more than five hundred identity-seeking clients includes: American Motors, Service, the New York Stock Exchange, RCA, NBC, MGM, J.C. Penney, Coca-Cola, and Con Ed.Only a few of these companies, such as Amtrak or Con Ed, use Helvetica for the logo itself - a ard boxes, nealy every one of the companies listed above uses some form of Helvetica. For instance, “Coca-Cola” is distinctive, but Helvetica says “It’s the real thing.” The new American Exp it.) Governments and corporation rely on Helvetica partly because it makes them appear neutral and efficient, partly because its smoothness makes them seem human. This chic, friendly aspe said about Helvetica, “It represents an update authority. Not old government, but new government.” He goes further: “Helvetica is part of a psychological enslavement. It’s a subconscious plo Helvetica signs ease us not only through building corrodors, but through mental corridors. Ready for any mistaken move in a modern maze, a sign greets us at the point of decision, a menta After transforming ugly garbage trucks into slick sanitation vehicles, Walter Kacik should know when he says, “Helvetica enhances things that normally wouldn’t work.” It serves to tone down places to stamp them “sanitized,” “neutralized”, and “authorized.” Cleanly trimmed of all excess until only an instant modern classic remains, its labels seem to say, “To look futher is in vain.” fantasy.” Fantasy and a well-ordered society have always been at odds. And, as James Wines says, by designing fantasy out of our society, we are headed in a dangerous direction. “Our w anarchy’ that exploded on the verge of the nineteen nineties. It was he who fathered what was subsequently dubbed ‘Swiss Punk’, ‘New Wave’ or whatever you care to call it – perhaps even classical Swiss typography, Weingart began his typographic career in the early sixties as an apprentice of hand composition at a typesetting firm. He then decided to further his studies at the of the Basel School, invited him to teach there, by the sheer admiration of his work. He has been teaching there ever since and had made extraordinary impact on the contemporary typograp typography. The use of grid systems was the key to the logical disposition of type and images on the page, along with sanserif typefaces for clear, functional communication. Figures such as A trusive and transparent, in order to clearly communicate its textual content. By the beginning of the sixties, the language of Swiss typography had already gained reputation the world over. Swi hurriedly corrects my one-sided viewpoint of Swiss typography: ‘not only one conception of typography exists in Switzerland.’ He would proudly acknowledge that his experimental typography i His typographic experiments were strongly grounded, and were based on an intimate understanding of the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic functions of typography. Whereas ‘traditional’ S semantic function of typography comes in: Weingart believes that certain graphic modifications of type can in fact intensify meaning. ‘What’s the use of being legible, when nothing inspires y qualities of his type, the almost cinematic impact of his layouts, all speak of his great passion of creating with graphical forms. His typographic layouts are compelling yet lucid, free yet controlle typography. His inspirations were mainly drawn from the processes of typesetting and reproduction, where he finds great pleasure in discovering their characteristics and pushing them to the composition using ruling pens. Instead of drawing the lines as he was told, he went over to the type shop and made a contraption that he could use to print lines. Weingart’s ingenuity is simply im He screwed the hooks into the wood at different levels so some received ink at type-high and some did not. Perhaps ‘rebel’ is too harsh of a description – he was simply inquisitive. There is no rules that were used to print tabular matter always had to be straight and at 90-degree angles to each other. He created highly abstract letterpress prints with rules shaped into elegant curves, a One of these typefaces would certainly be Akzidenz Grotesk, an early sanserif of the grotesque genre designed by the Berthold Foundry in Germany at the close of the 19th century. ‘I grew up his taste. The simplicity of his choice of typefaces speaks of his fondness of simple tools.Weingart’s fascination with everything mechanical started at an early age. When he was a young boy processes. ‘For me, typography is a triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing technique,’ writes Weingart. The possibilities that these technologies o technique.’Technological progression eventually led Weingart to experiment with photographic reproduction processes. Not satisfied with the rather limited range of sizes that metal type offere at Basel, Weingart was able to continue pursuing his letter ‘M’ series of typographic studies that he had begun when he was working part time at a typesetting firm. He printed a few letter Ms the basis of many engaging abstract compositions.In the midst of his emotionally satisfying work one will also occasionally encounter work in his repertoire that is undeniably Swiss in its origin and the users’ needs are of a more urgent priority. Weingart simply knows when he has to put his ego aside and emphasize on solving particular design problems. It is the tension between typography received at that time? Weingart recalls, ‘in my presentations in 1972, there was always a group of audience that hated it, one group that loved it, and the rest would all leave duri students like April Greiman and Dan Friedman brought back to the US a wealth of typographic arsenals from Basel and co-opted it into the mainstream of graphic design. From April Greiman designer adored and imitated. While no one can give a definitive answer as to whether these American graphic designers took what Weingart did and brought it to new heights, they certainly trends but a ‘stability’ that they try to move away from, but never totally.Weingart’s typographic experimentations spanned across three different eras of typesetting technology: letterpress, p computer technology. The computer, to him, is too illusive. He compares the computer to a digital watch: a traditional watch shows a ‘landscape’, it tells a story; a digital watch only shows a pa tactile, hands-on experience. It is surprising that he was probably also the first person to introduce the Macintosh computer into the type shop in Switzerland. Orthodoz Modern architects have diverse and the sophisticated. As participantes in a revolutionary movement, they acclaimed the newness of modern functions, ignoring their complications. In their role as reformers, they por Wright, who grew up with the motto “Truth against the World,” wrote: “Visions of simplicity so broad and far-reaching would open to me and such buildin harmonies appear that...would change and withour ambiguity.” Modern architects with few exceptions eschewed ambiguity.But now our position is different: “At the same time that the problems increase in quantity, complexity, and view of life as complex and ironic is what every individual passes through in becoming mature. But certain epochs encourage this development; in them the pradoxical of dramatic outlook colo Such inner peace as men gain must represent a tension among contradictions and uncertainties...A feeling for paradox allows seemingly dissimilar things to exist side by side, their very incong paradox, “less is more.” Paul Rudolph has clarly stated the implications of Mies’ point of view: “All problems can never be solved...Indeed it is a charateristic of the twentieth century that archite problems, his buildings would be far less potent.”The doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justifies exclusion for expressive purposes. I does, indeed, permit exclusion for expressi the universe, such a commitment surely means that the architect determines how problems should be solved, not that he can determine which of the problems he will solve. He can exlude imp than an exclusive king of architecture there is room for the fragment, for contradiction, for improvisation, and for the tension these produce. Mies’ exquisite pavilions have had valuable implica anologies between Japanese pavilions and recent domestic architecture. They ignore the real complexity and contradiction inherent in the domestic program - the spatial and technological po tempted to go beyond the simplicities of the elegant pavilion. He explicitly separated and articulated the enclosed “private functions” of living on a ground floor pedestal, thus separating them simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Lessi is a bore.The recognition of complexity in architecture does not negate what Lous Kahn has achieved through the famous subtleties and precision of its distorted geometry and the contradictions and tensions inherent in its order. The Doric temple could achieve apparent simplicity thro sis, and even a method of achieving complex architecture itself. “We oversimplify a given event when we characteriza it from the standpoint of a given interest.” But this kind of simplification is or subjective expressionism. A false complexity has recently countered the false simplicity of an earlier Modern architecture. It promotes an architecture of symmetrical picturesqueness - whic grams, and its intricate ornament, though dependent on industrial techniques for execution, is dryly reminescent of forms originally created by handicraft techniques. Gothic tracery and Rococò method. This kind of complexity through exuberance, perhaps impossible today, is the antithesis of “serene” architecture, despite the superficial resemblance between them. But if exuberance gh reduction - in order to promote complexity within the whole. The works of Alvar Aalto and Le Corbusier (who often disregard his polemical writings) are examples. But the characteristics of and have considered his whole composition willful picturesqueness. I do not consider Aalto’s Imatra churc picturesque. By repeating in the massing the genuine complexity of the triple-divided ci’s recent church for the Autostrada. Aalto’s complexity is part of the program and structure of the whole rather than a device justified only by the desire for expression. Though we no loger a reaction to the banality or prettiness of current architecture. It is an attitude common in the Mannerist periods: the sixteenth century in Italy or the Hellenistic period in Classical art, and is als Sullivan, Luryens, and recently, Le Corbusier, Aalto, Kahn, and others.Today this attitude is again relevant to both the medium of architecture and the program in architecture.First, the medium Instead, the variety inherent in the ambiguity of visual perception must once more be acknowledged and exploited.Second, the growning complexities of our funcional problems must be ackno at the scale of city and regional planning. But even the house, simple in scope, is complex in purpose if the ambiguities of contemporary experience are expressed. This contrast between the contains few contradictions, although the means involved in the program and structure of buildings are far simpler and less sophisticated technologically than almost any engineering project, th in architecture, and equally controversial at its inception. Yet, even as postmodernism spread quickly throughout all the arts -including music, literature, fine arts and theater- a new influece arr U.S. graphic design programs. Coming largerly out of French literary theory, the emphasis here is not on the author/creator (as in new wave) or on the scientific contruction of the design soluti and personal layers of meaning, in addition to the purely objective and the informational. These strategies encourage new wave graphic designers to work with layers of meaning and content dience. The deconstruction of meaning holds important lessons about our audiences for visual communicators, but poses some problems as well. While these theories applaud the existence Designers find themselves cast in an authoritarian role within this critique. And the focus on theoretical and critical language dynamics sometimes seems to diminish visual values in graphic d but also practice experimentally and initiate original theory and research in graduate studies. We seem finally to have reached a fair consensus that graphic design is not commercial art but recent influences add a thir contender to the art/science debate. Literary and critical thorists see design as a language to be read - that graphic design might be considered a form of visual liter as art is concerned with personal content and expression; design as science is concerned with the systematic presentation of objective information: and design as language is concerned with requires an understanding of all three. In a mature profession, there is both the room and the need for specialized inquiry, and our schools can offer intesive investigations of the entire spectr whistle blew again - a shrill, prolonged noise followed by three short blasts of ear-splitting violence: a vuolence without purpose that remained without effect. There was no more reaction - no struggled against the narrowing space that still separated them from theri goal. Every head was raised, one next to the other, in a identical attitude. A last puff of heavy, noiseless steam formed expectant group. The whistle had had no more effect on his withdrawal than on the passionate attiontion of his neighbors. Standing like them, his body and limbs rigid, he kept his eyes on the string. Not any string, not scraps of inferior quality, worn, frayed bits that had been spoiled by overuse, not pieces too short to be good for anything.This one would have been just right. It was probably dropped it by mistake after having rolled it up for future use - or else for a collection.Mathias bent down to retrieve it. As he straightened up again he noticed, a few feet to the right, a eyes shift toward the wad of string he was holding at the level of his chest. He was not disappointed by a closer look: it was a real find - not too shiny, firmly and regularly twisted, and evident with the others in the shoebox? His memory immediately edged away toward the indefinite light of a rainy landscape, in which a piece of string played no perceptible part.He had only to put it noticed that in growing their shape had become exaggeratedly pointed; naturally he did not file them to look like that. The child was still staring in his direction, but it was difficult to be sure sh She must have been looking at the sea.Mathias let his arm fall to his side. Suddenly the engines stopped. The vibration ceased at once, as well as the continuous rumbling sound that ha acco tually leave the ship. Most of them, ready for the disembarkation for some time, held their luggage in their hands, and all were facing left, their eyes fixed on the top of the pier where about twen anxious, strangely petrified and uniform. The ship moved ahead under its own momentum, and the only sound that could be heard was the rustling of water as it slid past the hull. A gray gull, wings, its head cocked, one eye fixed on the water below - one round, indifferent, inexpressive eye.There was the sound of an electric bell. The engines started up again. The ship began to m tidal basin, the row of houses on the quay.“She’s on time today,” said a voice.”Almost,” someone corrected - perhaps it was the same voice.Mathias looked at his watch. The crossing had last jectory in the same deliberate way - wings motionless, head cocked, beak pointing downward, one eye fixed.The ship didn’t seem to be moving in any direction at all. But the noise of violently revealed the smoother surface of its lower section, darkened by the water and half-covered with greenish moss. On closer inspection, the stone rim drew almost imperceptibly closer.The ston

ct geometric patterns, uncomon color combinations, text manipulations and striking abstract visuals that were used to clearly convey their purpose in a very remarkable way. Whitespace can (and the site) is clearly conveyed in a split of a second. It’s also good for business, since people use interfaces that they understand and tend reject the ones they don’t. A common way that tyle is all about using less, so instead of adding more elements to work with, they prefer to remove as much as possible. This is a great example of the ‘less is more’ principle and of the ‘the on on a page. Rudimentary versions of grid systems existed since the medieval times, but a group of graphic designers, mostly inspired in ideas from typographical literature started building a d the knowledge about the grids thorough the world. Nowadays grid systems are an established tool that is often used by print and web designers to create well-structured, balanced designs. to learn and find out more about grid-systems.More than grids, structured informationWhen we learn from the Swiss Style literature, it’s very easy to embrace the grid system as a purely visual being inherent to the use of the grid, is a big part of the Swiss Style’s essence.These posters have a very well-defined structure. It definitely feels like tabular data and tabular data is one such of tables as structural elements was, and still is, very harmful to web accessibility. However, blindly replacing tables for div tags does not help to make code more semantic. List elements are a he Haas Typefoundry in 1957. Haas says it was designed specifically for the Swiss market (“Helvetica” means Swiss), and was intended to be a “perfectly neutral typeface withou any overly from one lettere to the next, they are supposedly more legible, particularly for small print. But the difference is minimal for most sign size letters, and many designers say they use Helvetica two-word display message, for buckeye and force, you use sans serif”. But why is Helvetica the most popular of the sans serifs? “It’s beautiful,”said Benguiat. “It’s a pure letter.”Other designers hat when Walter Kacik redesigned New York City’s garbage trucks in 1968 he used Helvetica. The trucks are all white except for one word, which is in black, lowercase Helvetica: “sanitation”. nd of purity we wanted.” The resul was that “people trusted these trucks.” Indeed, cleanliness implies trust, We’ve been brought up to associate the two (I’m clean, officer.”) and their opposites is not an advertising agency; it bills itself as a “pioneer in the science of corporate identity.”Finding a corporation’s identity almost always means redesigning its graphicfs. (Occasionally a name ndardized solutions.” It claims to work from the inside out. Considering the expense to its clients (“Coca-Cola spent over a million dollars for a little squiggle,” a former L&M executive said), its , General Motors, Chrysler, Exxon, Amtrak, Chase Manhattan, Firs National City Corporation, Bowery Savings Bank, Chemical Bank, America Express, U.S. Steel, ITT, the Internal Revenue a logo is almost obliged to be unique and most are specially designed. But as a supporting typeface (and, in most cases, the supporting typeface) on everything from annual reports to cardbopress logo is specially drawn, but everything else is in Helvetica. (and when non-Roman alphabets like Chinese cannot take direct Helvetica letters, they will be drawn as closely as possible to ect of the typeface bothers one designer, James Wines, codirector of SITE (Sculpture in the Environment) and a Pulitzer Prize winner for graphics (the category has since been discontinued), ot: getting people to do, think, say what you want them to...It assumes you accept some system. It means it’s predetermined that you’re on their route, that it’s not casually happening to you.” al bell rings in recognition, and down we go through the right chute! A slick-looking sign lubricates our grooves of thought and taste, making the product whose name it bears easier to accept. potentially offensive messages: “Littering is filthy and selfish so don’t do it!” And Lenny Bruce’s autobiography is packaged in Helvetica. Helvetica skims across all categories of products and ” As Vignelli said futher is in vain.” As Vignelli said, “What you see is different from what you perceive. You see Helvetica and you perceive order.” With more unusual lettering, “you perceive world is a designed extension of service,” he said. “Other worlds are an aesthetic extension of spirit.” The writing’s on the wall. He started it all. It was he who ignited the spark of ‘typographic post-modernism. His name is Wolfgang Weingart. Weingart was born in the midst of the World War II in Germany. Most famous for his experimental, expressive work that broke the mould of Basel School of Design in Switzerland, the cradle of classical Swiss typography. Following his rather unsuccessful attempt at completing his course, Armin Hoffmann, who was then the head phic landscape.What exactly is ‘Swiss typography’? Swiss typography was founded upon the teachings of the Bauhaus in Germany soon after World War II and became a rational approach to Armin Hoffmann and Emil Ruder were the major proponents of Swiss typography, who were teachers at the Basel School of Design at the time. They believed that typography should be unobiss typography became synonymous with corporate design for multinationals, and subsequently referred to as the ‘international typographic style’.At this point, our dear Mr Weingart barges in, is also Swiss, because it was a ‘natural progression’ from the classical Swiss typography as we know it. To call what he did and still does as ‘deconstructive’ would be too simplistic a comment. Swiss typography mainly focused on the syntactic function, Weingart was interested in how far the graphic qualities of typography can be pushed and still retain its meaning. This is when the you to take notice of it?’ How true.Weingart’s work is characterized by his painterly application of graphical and typographical elements. The emotionally-charged lines, the potent, image-like ed. Some of his personal work is almost akin to landscape paintings, only that his paintbrush is replaced by type, rules and screens. He doesn’t seem to perceive a divide between fine art and eir limits. Since the first day when he arrived at Basel as a student, it was clear that Weingart was a rebel. In a class he had with Armin Hoffmann, the students were asked to work on a line mpressive: he took a plank of wood, screwed L-shaped hooks on it in a grid format, then turned them at 0, 45 and 90 degree angles to form compositions, inked it and printed it on a letterpress. o doubt that Weingart bent the rule of classical Swiss typography – both literally and figuratively. When he was an apprentice at a letterpress workshop, he was pondering about why the brass almost resembling rolling hills in a beautiful countryside.Weingart works with a very limited palette of typefaces. He suggests that four typefaces are enough to address all typographic problems. p with Akzidenz Grotesk and I love it. Akzidenz Grotesk has a certain ugliness to it, that’s why it has character.’ He feels that Univers, which is Emil Ruder’s favorite, is too slick and cosmetic for y, he once completely disassembled his bicycle and put it back together again. In his typographic work, Weingart has been equally fascinated by the technology and mechanical reproduction offer seem endless to him, and he finds it hugely satisfying to explore the materials: ‘The thing that is so special for me… is the variability of the materials under the influence of idea and ed, Weingart began to explore the possibilities of the repro camera. He found that with the repro camera, a more fluid range of type sizes was possible. Working alongside Emil Ruder’s class by letterpress, pasted them down on a cube, and photographed them from different perspectives. This unique process yielded dramatic black and white letterforms in perspective and formed nal flavor – calm, rational and clear. ‘That’s my schizophrenic personality,’ says Weingart. As much as he tries to be expressive with type, he feels that there are times when the clients’ wishes his desire to express and his consideration for communication that creates this interesting mix of work and his perpetually inquisitive working ethos.How well was his progressive idea about ing the lecture.’ The people who were against his experimentations dismissed it as something that could never be adopted commercially. It wasn’t until the early eighties, when his American n’s ‘hybrid imagery’ to David Carson’s deconstructive page layouts, anarchy reigned supreme in the nineties. Those were the days for graphic design superstars, whose style many a graphic managed to make it a huge commercial success. ‘They were doing it as a style and it was never my idea to create fashion,’ denotes Weingart. The teaching at Basel for Weingart is not about phototypesetting and the computer. Yet, despite how readily he accepted and pushed the boundaries of the letterpress and phototypesetting processes, he is rather unenthusiastic about the articular moment. That’s why Weingart’s students do not design on the computer – they are asked to first work out their ideas by hand. Weingart wants his students to experience design as a e tended to recognize complexity insufficiently or inconsistently. In their attempt to break with tradition and start all over again, they idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the ritanically advocated the separation and exlusion of elements, rather than the inclusion of various requirements and their juxtapositions. As a forerunner of the Modern movement, Frank Lloyd e and DEEPEN the thinking and culture of the modern world. So I believed. And Le Corbusier, co-founder of Purism, spoke of the “great primary forms” which, he proclaimed, were “distinct... difficulty they also change faster than before, and require an attitude more like that described by August Heckscher: “The movement from a view of like as essentially simple and orderly to a ors the whole intellectual scene...Amid simplicity and order rationalism is born, but rationalism proves inadequate in any period of opheaval. Then qeuilibrium must be created out of opposites. gruity suggesting a kind of truth.Rationalizations for simplification are still current, however, though subtler than the early arguments. They are exparnsions of Mies Van der Rohe’s magnificent ects are highly selective in determining which problems they want to solve. Mies, for instance, makes woderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more ive purposes. It does, indeed, permit the architect to be highly selective in determining which problems he wants to solve. But if the architect must be committed to his particular way of seeing porant considerations only at the risk of separating architecture from the experience of life and the needs of society. If some problems prove insoluble, he can express this: in an inclusive rather ation for architecture, but their selectiveness of content and language is their limitation as well as their strength.i question the relevance of analogies between pravilons and houses, especially ossibilities as well as the need for variety in visual experience. Forced simplicity results in oversimplification. In the Wiley House, for instance, in contrast to his glass house, Philip Johnson atm from the open socual functions in the modular pavilion above. But even here the building becomes a diagram of an oversimplified program for living - an abstract theory of either-or. Where s called “the desire for semplicity”. But aesthetic simplicity which is satisfaction to the mind derives, when valid and profound, from inner complexity. The Doric temple’s simplicity to the eye is ough real complexity. When complexity disappeared, as in the la temples, blandness replaced simplicity. Not does complexity deny the valid simplification which is part of the precess of analys a method in the analytical process of achieving a complex art. It should not be mistaken for a goal.An architecture of complexity and contradiction, however, does not mean picturesqueness ch Minoru Yamasaki calls “serene” - but it representes a new formalism as unconnected with experience as the former cult of simplicity. Its intricate forms do not reflect genuinely complex proò rocaille were not only expressively valid in relation to the whole, but came from a valid showing-off of hand skills and expressed a vitality derived from the immediacity and individuality for the e is not characteristic of our art, it is tension, rather than “serenity” that would appear to be so.The best twentieth-century architects have usually rejected simplification - that is, simplicity throuf complexity and contradiction in their work are often ignored or misunderstood. Critics of Aalto, for instance, have liked him mostly for his sensitivity to natural materials and his fine detailing, plan and the acoustical ceiling pattern, this church represents a justifiable expressionism different from the willful picturesqueness of the haphazard structure and space of Giovanni Michelucargue over the primacy of form or function )which follows which?), we cannot ignore their interdependence.The desire for a complex architecture, with its attendant contradictions, is not only a so a continuous strain seen in such divers architects as Michelangelo, Palladio, Borromini, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor, Soane, Ledoux, Butterfield, some architects of the Shingle Style, Furness, m of architecture must be re-examined if the increased scope of our architecture as well as the complexity of its goals is to be expressed. Simplified or superficially complex forms will not work. owledged. I refer, of course, to those programs, unique in our time, which are complex because of their scope, such as research laboratories, hospitals, and particularly the enormous projects e means and the goals of a program is significant. Although the means ivolved in the program of a rocket to get to the moon, for instance, are almost infinitely complex, the goal is simple and he purpose is more complex and often inherently ambiguous. New wave graphic design was an experiment in formal issues, often indulgent, frequently analogous to the postmodern movement rived in design education. Poststructuralist critical theories, including deconstruction, began to find their way out of literary criticism and into several of the more theoretical and experimental of ion itself (as in funcional modernism), but rather on the reader/wiewer and the possibility of multiple interpretations. Application of these theories offer the opportunity for other, more subjective t, as well as layers of form. In addition, this new focus on audience interpretation challenges designers to tailor their visual messages to the special characteristics of each prohect’s target aue of unstable meaning because of audicences’ varying cultural contexts and personal experiences, this can be at odds with the client’s need for a single, clear interpretation of the message. design, leading to a predominantly verbal approach, as copywriting’s dominance has done in advertising design.Most importantly, we now have a community of educators who not only teach, true professional discipline encompassing practice, education and theory. But we hear a continuing debate as to whether this profession should learn toward art or toward science. The most rature.Although all three orientations are preoccupied with communication and meaning, each stresses a different component of the sender-transmitter-receiver communication model. Design the audience’s reading or interpretation of text and content. It would seem that the answer to this debate is that alla three components are valuable - that nearly every communitcation problem rum, each choosing its orientation based on its resources and potential. Certainly, graphic design will be the richer for the exploration of all three directions. It was as if no one had heard.The o further exclamation - than there had been at firt; not one feature of one face had even trembled.A motioneless and parallel seies of strained, almost anxious stare crossed - tried to cross d a great plum in the air above them, and vanished as soon as it had appeared.Slightly to one side, behind the area in which the steam had just appeared, one passenger stood apart from the deck.He had often heard the story before. When he was still a child - perhaps twenty-five or thirty years ago - he had had a big cardboard box, an old shoebox, in which he collected pieces of s a thin hemp cord in perfect condition, carefully rolled into a figure eight, with a few extra turns wound around the middle. It must be pretty long - a yard at least, perhaps two. Someone had little girl of seve or eight gravely staring at him, her eyes enormous and calm. He smiled hesitantly, but she did not bother to smile back, and it was only after several seconds that he saw her tly very strong.For a moment he thought he recognized it, as if it were something he had lost long ago. A similar cord once must have occupied an important place in his thoughts. Would it be in his pocket. But no sooner had he begun the gesture than he stopped, his arm half-bent, undecided, gazing at his hand. He saw that his nails were too long, which he already knew. He also he was looking at him and not at something behind him, or wven at nothing at all; her eyes seemed almost too wide to be able to focus on a single object, unless it was one of enormous size. ompanied the ship since its departure. All the passengers remained silent, motionless, pressed close togheter at the entrance to the already crowded corridor through which they would evennty people were standing in a compact group, equally silent and rigid, looking for a familiar face in the crowd on the little steamer. In each group the expressions were identical: strained, almost flying from astern at a speed only slightly greater than that of the ship, passed slowly on the port side in front of the pier, gliding at the level of the bridge without the slightest movement of its make a turn that brought it gradually closer to the pier. The coast rapidly extended along the other side: the squat lighhouse strped clack and white, the half-ruined fort, the sluice gates of the ted exactly three hours.The electric bell rang again; then once more, a few seconds later. A gray gull resembling the firt one passed by in the same direction, following the same horizontal tray churning water could be head astern. The pier, now quite close, towered several yards above the deck. The tide must have been out. The landing slip from which the ship would be boarded ne rim - an oblique, sharp edge formed by two interesting perpendicular planes: the vertical embankment perpendicular to the quay and the ramp leading to the top of the pier - was continued

ABOUT TYPOGRAPHY

R.3/EXE.1 Registro Teórico + Proposta Editorial Universidade de Lisboa Faculdade de Belas-Artes Design de Comunicação DC4 2010–11 Docentes: António Nicolas e Pedro Almeida FBAUL / Outubro 2010 Estudante: Adriano Mescia

Adriano Mescia

ABOUT TYPOGRAPHY MIXING MESSAGES

MEMORIA JUSTIFICATIVA: O texto de McCoy fala das várias tendências da tipografia na Escola Suíça e no New Wave. Fala do diferente modo de relatar imagens e textos, da Nova Tipografia, da tipografia “nonallusive” e de aquela, ao inverso, rica de conteúdos semânticos. O primeiro texto que escolhi é “Lessons From a Swiss Style” porque em isto breve texto Diogo Terror, analisa em maneira técnica as características do design gráfico suíço, que é um ponto de partida para o texto de McCoy e tambem do mesmo New Wave e das suas correntes. Acho que para compreender como desenvolverà-se a tipografia è necessário antes fazer uma panorâmica sobre a tipografia original, ou melhor aquela aonde começa o discurso. O segundo texto escolhido é ainda ligado á Escola Suíça, é um di un tratado sobre o Helvetica de o livro Looking Closer 3 de Michael Bierut. O Helvetica è certamente um emblema de tudo o design gráfico suíço, é um dos seus maximos sucessos e acho que não se pode falar da Escola Suíça sem mencionar o Helvetica. Tracta-se de um texto crítico, bem, não técnico como o primeiro. O terceiro texto é “Wolfgang Weingart’s Typography Landscape”, um tractato sobre Weingart, cujo que marcou a hora da virada na escola suíça com os suos experimentaçãos sintácticos, portando á formação do New Wave. O quarto texto, é tracto do livro “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”, isto não é um texto sobre o design grafíco, Robert Venturi, de fato, nesto livro fala da arquitetura. Todavia, esto livro publicado nos mesmos anos da difusão das teorias de Weingart, assim como estas ultimas, é fundamental na formação do New Wave. O quinto texto é “New Theories” de Steven Heller, tracta-se de uma panoràmica geral das delle principais características do movimento New Wave e da Nova Tipografia. Esto texto poderia ser ligado ao primeiro, porque tambem isso é um texto tecníco, e tambem porque se compadarado é fácil notar as enormes diferenças que envolveram-se no mundo da tipografia com a chegada do New Wave. O sexto testo è um texto completamente diferente de outros, não é um tractado, nem um texto tecníco, mas é um texto tirado da um romance. O romance é “Voyeur”, do francês Alain Robbe-Grillet um dos principais protagonistas da literatura francesa do vigésimo seculo, que contribuiu a influenciar o design grafico do New Wave. Posto que come é explicado no texto de Heller, muitos dos artistas do New Wave não eram usuais designer, mas eles vinham tambem de outras artes o de outros profissãos.

NEW YORK SCHOOL

SWISS SCHOOL LESSONS FROM SWISS SCHOOL GRAPHIC DESIGN Diogo Terror

WOLF WEING

SWISS MINIMALISM

WOLFGANG WEIN TYPOGRAPHY LA Keith Tam

LESS IS MORE/ LESS IS BORE

COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION IN ARCHITECTURE Robert Venturi

DECOSTRUCTIONISM Neville Brody

Katherine KatherineMcCoy McCoy

CRANBROOK

David Caslon

Ed Fella

NEW NEW TYPOGRAPH TYPOGRAPH

Rick Poynor new relationship between text and imagines

NEW ACADEMY

HE LVE T I C A

HELVETICA, LOOKING CLOSER 3 Michael Bierut

Akzidenz Grotesk

FGANG GART

semantic expression

NGART’S ANDSCAPE

WAVE WAVE HY HYAS ASDISCOURSE DISCOURSE

EXPERIMENTAL TYPOGRAPHY

layering of meaning

EMIGRE Steven Heller

the artists come from fine art, pgotograpgic or literary backgrounds

NEW THEORIES Steven Heller

FRENCH LITERATURE THE NOUVEAU ROMAN THE VOYEUR Alain Robbe-Grillet

TYPOGRAP DISC Katherine McCoy galvanized the deesign community during the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Under her leadership, experimental work undertaken at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan transformed graphic design into provocation. Balking against the modern constraints of Swiss typographic systems, her studentes ushered in a period of complexity, ambiguity, and subjectivity. Moving beyond the more formal radical experimentation of Wolfgang Weingart, McCoy explored “new relathionships between text and image.” The resulting multilayered, personal work consciously provoked interpretation from the audience. Modernism’s emphasis on form gave way to a highly individuated study of expression. Typography became discourse to be evaluated and discussed within the dense cultural context of philosophy, linguistic, and cultural theory.

Katherin Angry modernists protested the work as “ugly” and “impractical,” kicking off the “Legibility Wars” of the 1900’s. This uproar drives home the importance of Cranbrook. The work at this small rustbelt school foced the modern tenets underlying our profession to the surface. There they could be critically exained and addressed through fresh postmodern eyes.

Katherine McCoy ,

PHY AS COURSE with

This was

David Frej

T h e r e c e n t h i s t o r y o f g r a p h i c d e s i g n i n t h e U. S. r e v e a l s a s e r i es of actions and reactions.

The fifties

o f U. S. g r a p h i c d e s i g n i n t h e copy-concept challenged

tion of

and

saw the flowering

N e w Yo r k S c h o o l .

image-oriented

direction

in the sixties by the importa-

Swiss minimalism,

Coy

a structural and typographic system that forced a split between graphic design and advertising.

rebelled against Helvetica and the grid system that had become the official Predictably, designers in the next decade American corporate style.

S N O LESS M O R F S S I W S E L Y T S C I H P GRA N G I S DE

A study of classic Swiss style works reveals a strong attention of graphic designers to uniform design elements and strong geometric shapes. Graphic artists have experimented with abstract geometric patterns, uncomon color combinations, text manipulations and striking abstract visuals that were used to clearly convey their purpose in a very remarkable way. Whitespace can never be underrated. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very important element for both visual impact and readability. It feels quite inviting when a web page is laid out in such a fashion that the organization of the page (and the site) is clearly conveyed in a split of a second. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also good for business, since people use interfaces that they understand and tend reject the ones they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

A common way that people pursue organization is by having markers that separate the different parts of the site: in web design icons and illustrations are used to separate various types of content. But Swiss style is all about using less, so instead of adding more elements to work with, they prefer to remove as much as possible. This is a great example of the principle and of the

‘less is ‘the more’ content is the interface’wisdom. to help graphic designers in the meaningful, logical and consistent organization of information on a page. Rudimentary versions of grid systems existed since the medieval times, but a group of graphic designers, mostly inspired in ideas from typographical literature started building a more rigid and coherent

GridSystems

A grid system is a rigid framework that is supposed

system for page layout. The core of these ideas were first presented in the book Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann which helped to spread the knowledge about the grids thorough the world. Nowadays grid systems are an established tool that is often used by print and web designers to create well-structured, balanced designs. There are many resources on the subject, one of them is an article by your own Smashing Magazine: Designing With Grid-Based Approach. You may want to take a closer look at it if you want to learn and find out more about grid-systems.

There is also a direct influence from the constructivism, elementarism and minimalism movements in the Swiss Style artists. Minimal design is about removing When we learn from the Swiss Style literature, it’s very easy to the unnecessary and emphasizing the necesembrace the grid system as a purely visual framework. However, sary; it’s about a functioupon a further examination we can see that grids are more than nal and simple use of just the art of placing elements; there’s a subtle layer of semantic fundamental elements of organization of data which, despite not being inherent to the use of style for the purpose of the artists’ objectives. the grid, is a big part of the Swiss Style’s essence. This principle is one of the These posters have a very well-defined structure. It definitely feels core reasons why Swiss like tabular data and tabular data is one such case that the dispoStyle graphic designers sition of the information extrapolates the realm of graphic layout pay so much attention to type. Typeface is one and starts hinting on the meaning of data and how various chunks of the most fundamental of data relate to each other. The abuse of tables as structural eleelements of visual comments was, and still is, very harmful to web accessibility. However, munication that is able to blindly replacing tables for div tags does not help to make code deliver the message in a very precise, clear way. more semantic. List elements are a great solution for collections According to the Swiss of similar data, but ULs and OLs do not define any kind of relation movement, adding more between this data. elements without fully exploring the potential of the fundamental ones can be considered a ‘waste’. As these basic elements, like typography, have so much aesthetic potential, there’s rarely a need for other visual graphics elements. In many aspects, these ideas touch on the core proposals of the De Stijl movement. The neoplasticism, as proposed by De Stijl artists, is about elementarism and geometry not only as a form of exploring the potential of the fundamental elements, but as a pursuit of beauty and harmony, hinting on a more mystical belief in ‘ideal’ geometric forms.

More than grids, structured information...

Drop the Serif

(…or

)

’t n o d r rathe

One of the strongest characteristics of the Swiss style typography is the use of sans-serif typefaces such as Akzidenz Grotesk and Neue Haas Grotesk (a.k.a ). In fact, when Jan Tschichold wrote Die neue Typographie, he ignored any use of non sans-serif typefaces. With this philosophy, graphic designers were aiming at clarity, simplicity and universality. Helvetica, for instance, is a typeface that is famous for its pervasiveness: it is used in corporate identity, street signs, magazines and pretty much everywhere else.

Helvetica

“

The Swiss Style advocates that the typeface does not have to be expressive in itself, it must be an unobtrusive instrument of expression.

I don’t think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word ‘dog’ with any typeface and it doesn’t have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write ‘dog’ it should bark. Massimo Vignelli in the documentaty Helvetica.

HELVE HELVETI Helvetica was disegned by a Swiss, Max Meideger, and first produced by the Haas Typefoundry in 1957. Haas says it was designed specifically for the Swiss market (“Helvetica” means Swiss), and was intended to be a “perfectly neutral typeface without

any overly individual forms and without personal idiosynerasies.”

Helvetica is a “san serif”, as it lacks the little extra strokes, called serifs, at the end of its letters’ main strokes. Since serifs lead the eye from one lettere to the next, they are supposedly more legible, particularly for small print. But the difference is minimal for most sign size letters, and many designers say they use Helvetica precisely because it’s so easy to read.

ETICA ICA As Ed Benguiat, a leading typeface designer and the art director of Photo Lettering, Inc., says, “You

don’t read the word, you read power...

For that one or two-word display message, for buckeye and force, you use sans serif”.

But why is Helvetica the most popular of the sans serifs? was the best of the san serifs and it didn’t detract from the kind of purity we wanted.” The result was that “people trusted these trucks.”

It is not surprising, then, that when Walter Kacik redesigned New York City’s garbage trucks in 1968 he used Helvetica. The trucks are all white except for one word, which is in black, lowercase Helvetica: “sanitation”. Photographs of them were exhibited at the Louvre and at the Museum of Modern Art. Kacik chose Helvetica, he said, “because it

“It’s beautiful,” said Benguiat. “It’s a pure letter.”

“contemporary,” “easy Other designers descibe Helvetica as

to read”

“nonsense” “neutral” and even “cold”. The first

word that comes to their lips, though, is

“clean.”

Indeed, cleanliness implies trust, We’ve been brought up to associate the two (I’m clean, officer.”) and their opposites (“You durty, rotten, two-timing dame!”). Cleaning up images is the main business of some marketin and design firms. Probably the most influential of them is Lippincott and Margulies (L&M). It is not an advertising agency; it bills itself as a “pioneer in the science of corporate identity.” Cleaning up images is the main business of some marketingand design firms. One of the most influential of them is Lippincott & Margulies [which became Lippincott Mercer in 2003]. It is not an advertising agency—it is a brand agency, “finding” a corporation’s identity [so that, according to LM’s website, a brand “speaks to people. It cuts through the noise, the email, the myriad of marketing messages and says: experience me. It flies high and makes people want to grab the tail of the kite and come along for the ride.”] In its own brochures (in Helvetica), LM denies that it offers “face-lifts” or “standardized solutions.” It claims to work from the inside out. Considering the expense to its clients (“Coca-Cola spent over a million dollars for the little squiggle,” a former LM executive said), its soundproof-room confidentiality, and its scientific bent, LM might be regarded as a corporate shrink. LM’s list of more than 500 identity-seeking clients includes or has included: General Motors, Chrysler, Exxon, Amtrak, American Express, NBC, MGM, Coca-Cola, Con Ed, Citigroup, Microsoft, Monsanto, JP Morgan, Disney, Time Warner, and Hummer. Only a few of these companies, such as Amtrak or Con Ed, use Helvetica for the logo itself - a logo is almost obliged to be unique and most are specially designed. But as a supporting typeface (and, in most cases, the supporting typeface) on everything from annual reports to cardboard boxes, nealy every one of the companies listed above uses some form of Helvetica. For instance, “Coca-Cola” is distinctive, but Helvetica says “It’s the real thing.” The new American Express logo is specially drawn, but everything else is in Helvetica. (and when non-Roman alphabets like Chinese cannot take direct Helvetica letters, they will be drawn as closely as possible to it.) LM’s [former] vice-president in charge of design, Ray Poelvoorde, said Helvetica “already has sort of become an unofficial standard.” Asked if using such a pervasive typeface wouldn’t undermine the costly corporate identity, he said, “You’re offering a very nice courtesy to the general public who is bombarded with many messages and symbols every day. And for a company not well-known, to ask the public to memorize symbols…is fantasy.” But if he is right, then the companies that are remembered, that are finding their identities, are doing so by looking more and more alike—almost like one big corporation. A unilook for Unicorp.

Th Type Is Cha Your

k n i h t o d s S r e n g i s e d e d. t. m e o s S u r o. v e e d w i t h i bor

But f e w b e l i e v e t h a t i t i s a m e r e f a d . M o s t t i c a i n t h e f i r s t p l a c e b e c ause they expect quite a while. And most companies cannot

change. This is especially true for New York

Since 1967, under the guidance of designer Massimo Vignelli, the MTA has been gradually standardizing its graphics from about a dozen typefaces to a combination of Helvetica and Standard Medium. In contrast to the subway’s filth and potential for violence, the cleanly and crisply lettered signs lend a sense of authority. They assure us that the train will

his eface anging r Life

come and diminish the chaos created by the graffitiscrawled walls. (It’s no accident that the designer of Norman Mailer’s The Faith of Graffiti branded the book’s covers with Helvetica.) Governments and corporation rely on Helvetica partly because it makes them appear neutral and efficient, partly because its smoothness makes them seem human. This chic, friendly aspect of the typeface bothers one designer, James Wines, codirector of SITE (Sculpture in the Environment) and a Pulitzer Prize winner for graphics (the category has since been discontinued), said about Helvetica, “It represents an update authority.

Not old government, but new government.” He goes further:

s i a c i vet even l e H k e r a e om

t companies choose Helveit to remain contemporary for afford more than one identity

k’s Metropolitan Transit Authority.

. “Helveticaispartofa psychologicalenslavement. It’s a subconscious plot: getting people to do, think, say what you want them to...It assumes you accept some system. It means it’s predetermined that you’re on their route, that it’s not casually happening to you.” 17

Helvetica signs ease us not only through building corridors, but through mental corridors. Ready for any mistaken move in a modern maze, a sign greets us at the point of decision, a mental bell rings in recognition, and down we go through the right chute! A slick-looking sign lubricates our grooves of thought and taste, making the product whose name it bears easier to accept. After transforming ugly garbage trucks into slick sanitation vehicles, Walter Kacik should know when he says,

“Helvetica enhances things that

normally wouldn’t work.” down

potentially

offensive

It serves to tone

messages:

“Littering

is filthy and selfish so don’t do it!”

design alongs n graphic America

Sim ult

y omplemxeirtged C s ’ i r u t ert Ven cture e n ies, Rob in Archite as influences o t n e v e s y ly r r n a to e o is i e h In th ntradict ic design and idCe othe study of grasptuhdents.

exp ed ools ress and . A ion ver cade ism nac all ular cam e

Sh far atteri sch more ng th pre ool. fun e con t A pro ss, th fter han strain t f i a s e bee ssio pe br he an ts of i r n e m t n m sig tam al iss f flu isep ini ori n ann ed, main ive n rr y o tic di malis Be ginal uals codifi stream ew a f dia scipli m wa l w Ac aux A y a r ith ed in . To ppro tribe ne of s exh ade rts evol endl to a day ach s in the ilar my a , as archi ution essly form , how quick the g classi ting sop rap cal and eve ly Ph tect is a l i mo hic Sw il M ure now his stic r, iss d egg . It an ticate styl the m ved e int esign i sc d i s n t a r t ha o ve alls he stit e new utio nditio t fill rick the it. s n ha n , o s sta tus as pr . W h ur de s e a qu dic t w o-- tab as the le a Ne s w

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“

sas” Wolfgag Weingart

a lfg wo

lfg

ng ga

art

ing

ein

lf wo

a ing we

art

lfg

a lfg

lfg

g an lfg wo

ing

ein

ing

rt ga ein

ga olf

gw an lfg wo

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typographic landscape

a lfg

I took ‘Swiss Typography’ as my starting point, but then I blew it apart, never forcing any style upon my students. I never intended to create a ‘style’. It just happened that the students picked up — and misinterpreted — a so-called ‘Weingart style’ and spread it around.

phic f ‘typogra e spark o n nineties. th d e it n e ho ig e ninete s was he w rge of th bed ‘Swis d it all. It n the ve o ently dub perhaps d u e q He starte d e s lo b p u x s e – t s a a it w th ll t to ca inanarchy’ ho fathered wha you care gart. We w hatever ng Wein w a r g ny. o lf It was he a ’ o e rm v W e ew Wa II in G name is Punk’, ‘N ism. His orld War rk that broke rn W e e d o th m f two t o even pos the mids ntal, expressive an his born in e gart beg gart was s for his experim pography, Wein f hand ou rentice o her s ty Most fam f classical Swis sixties as an app furt to d ld o e early n decide e the mou reer in th . He the rland, th a e c rm z fi it ic h w g p S in typogra typesett esign in er unD a th f t ra o a l is n o h o io h g composit at the Basel Sc ann, Followin in Hoffm s ography. his studie ssical Swiss typ g his course, Arm ited him to inv f cla letin School, cradle o attempt at comp been e Basel l th . He has fu f rk s o o s e w d c a c is e h h su pact f o e im n th o ry ti then rdina mira who was , by the sheer ad had made extrao re ince and ape. teach the re ever s ic landsc e th g in h pograph ty teac ry ra hy was o ntemp typograp on the co ’? Swiss Germany soon y h p ra g po in typo‘Swiss ty of the Bauhaus roach to actly is What ex on the teachings e a rational app gical lo to the up am and bec ms was the key founded serif n II a r s a h it W w rld rid syste the page, along g after Wo f h as c o u e s s s The u ages on n. Figure onents o im ti d a n graphy. ic a n e u n of typ l comm jor prop dispositio r clear, functiona er were the ma asel School d fo B u s R e e c il th t fa m a type and E should chers offmann were tea that typography o h w y, Armin H h munid p e m ra v o g c lie o y e p rl b ty r to clea e. They e of Swiss m rd ti s, the o e e ti in th ix t, n at of the s nsparen g a in tr of Desig n d tation in n u g a trusive y the be eady gained rep with be unob ntent. B lr o s a c u o d l a a m h y tu on hy tex typograp phy became syn cate its referred of Swiss gra equently s b u s language ver. Swiss typo d n onals, a d o multinati ’. the worl esign for typographic style d te ra o l a corp n o ti a ‘intern to as the

t ar ing we

ing

olf

ing

To c a l l w h a t h e d i d a n d s t i l l d o e s a s ‘ d e c o n His typographic experiments were strongly

his experimental typography is also Swiss, because it was a ‘natural progression’ from the classical Swiss typography as we know it.

grounded, and were based on an intimate understanding of the semantic, syntactic and p r a g m a t i c f u n c t i o n s o f t y p o g r a p h y. W h e r e a s

He would proudly acknowledge that

typography exists in Switzerland.’

At this point, our dear Mr Weingart barges in, hurriedly corrects my one-sided viewpoint of Swiss typography: ‘not only one conception of

structive’ would be too simplistic a comment.

‘traditional’ focused on

S w i s s t y p o g r a p h y mainly the s y n t a c t i c f u n c t i o n ,

Weingart was interested

how far the graphic qu lities of typography c be pushed and still ret This is when the semantic function of typography c

its meaning.

in: Weingart believes that certain gra modifications of type can in fact inte fy meaning. ‘What’s the use of being legible,

nothing inspires you to take notice of it? How true

Weingart’s work is characterized by his painterly application of graphical and typographical elements. - The emotionally-charged lines, - The potent, image-like qualities of his type, - The almost cinematic impact of his layouts, all speak of his great passion of creating with graphical forms.

His typographic layouts are compelling yet lucid, free yet control

Some of his personal work is almost akin to landscape paintin

only that his paintbrush is replaced by type, rules and screens.

H e d o e s n ’t seem to perceive a divide between f i n e a r t a n d t y p o g r a p H i s

i n s p i r a t i o n s

c e s s e s h e

f i n d s

o f

w e r e

m a i n l y

t y p e s e t t i n g

g r e a t

r a c t e r i s t i c s

p l e a s u r e

a n d

a n d i n

p u s h i n g

d r a w n

f r o m

t h e

r e p r o d u c t i o n ,

d i s c o v e r i n g t h e m

t o

t h e i r

w h e

t h e i r

c h

l i m i t s

in uacan

tain comes

Since the first day when he arrived at Basel as a student, it was clear that Weingart was a rebel. In a class he had with Armin Hoffmann, the students were asked to work on a line composition using ruling pens. Instead of drawing the lines as he was told, he went over to the type shop and made a contraption that he could use to print lines. Weingart’s ingenuity is simply impressive: he took a plank of wood, screwed L-shaped hooks on it in a grid format, then turned them at 0, 45 and 90 degree angles to form compositions, inked it and printed it on a letterpress. He screwed the hooks into the wood at different levels so some received ink at type-high and some did not. Perhaps ‘rebel’ is too harsh of a description – he was simply inquisitive. There is no doubt that Weingart bent the rule of classical Swiss typography – both literally and figuratively. When he was an apprentice at a letterpress workshop, he was pondering about why the brass rules that were used to print tabular matter always had to be straight and at 90-degree angles to each other. He created highly abstract letterpress prints with rules shaped into elegant curves, almost resembling rolling hills in a beautiful countryside.

aphic ensi- Weingart works with a very limited palette of typefaces. He suggests that four

, when typefaces are enough to address all typographic problems. One of these typefaces would certainly be Akzidenz Grotesk, an early sanserif of the grotesque e. genre designed by the Berthold Foundry in Germany at the close of the 19th century.

“I grew up with Akzidenz Grotesk and I love it. Akzidenz Grotesk has a certain ugliness to it that’s why it has character.”

He feels that Univers, which is Emil Ruder’s favorite, is too slick and cosmetic for his taste. The simplicity of his choice of typefaces speaks of his fondness of simple tools. Weingart’s fascination with everything mechanical started at an early age. When he was a young boy, he once completely disassembled his bicycle and put it back together again. In his typographic work, Weingart has been equally fascinated by the technology and mechanical reproduction processes.

led.

ngs,

p h y. r o -

e r e

h a .

‘For me, typography is a triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing t e c h n i q u e , ’ w r i t e s We i n g a r t . T h e p o s s i b i l i t i e s t h a t t h e s e t e c h n o l o g i e s o ff e r s e e m e n d l e s s t o h i m , a n d h e f i n d s i t h u g e l y s a t i s f y i n g t o e x p l o r e t h e materials: ‘ T h e t h i n g t h a t i s s o s p e c i a l f o r m e … i s t h e variability of the materials under the influence of idea and technique.’

Te c h n o l o g i c a l p r o g r e s s i o n e v e n t u a l l y l e d W e i n g a r t t o e x m e n t w i t h p h o t o g r a p h i c r e p r o d u c t i o n p r o c e s s e s . Not satisfie the rather limited range of sizes that metal type offered, Weingart b to ex p l o r e t h e p o s s i b i l i t i e s o f t h e r e p r o c a m e r a . He found tha the repro camera, a more fluid range of type sizes was possible. Wo alongside Emil Ruder ’s class at Basel, W e i n g a r t w a s a b l e t o c nue pursuing his letter M’ series of typographic studies h e h a d b e g u n w h e n he was working part time at a typesetting Orthodoz Modern architects have tended to recognize complexity insufficiently or inconsistently. In their attempt to break with tradition and start all over again, they idealized the primitive and elementary at the expense of the diverse and the sophisticated. As participantes in a revolutionary movement, they acclaimed the newness of modern functions, ignoring their complications. In their role as reformers, they poritanically advocated the separation and exlusion of elements, rather than the inclusion of various requirements and their juxtapositions. As a forerunner of the Modern movement, Frank Lloyd Wright, who grew up with the motto “Truth against the World,” wrote: “Visions of simplicity so broad and

far-reaching would open to me and such buildin harmonies appear that...would change

and DEEPEN the thinking and culture of the modern world.

So I believed. And Le Corbusier, co-founder of Purism, spoke of the “great primary forms” which, he proclaimed, were “distinct... and withour ambiguity.” Modern architects with few exceptions eschewed ambiguity. But now our position is different: “At the same time that the problems increase in quantity, complexity, and difficulty they also change faster than before, and require an attitude more like that described by August Heckscher: “The movement from a view of like as essentially simple and orderly to a view of life as complex and ironic is what every individual passes through in becoming mature. But certain epochs encourage this development; in them the pradoxical of dramatic outlook colors the whole intellectual scene...Amid simplicity and order rationalism is born, but rationalism proves inadequate in any period of opheaval. Then qeuilibrium must be created out

of opposites. Such inner peace as men gain must represent a tension among contradictions and uncertainties...A feeling for paradox allows seemingly dissimilar things to exist side by side, their very incongruity suggesting a kind of truth. Rationalizations for simplification are still current, however, though subtler than the early arguments. They are exparnsions of Mies Van der Rohe’s magnificent paradox, “less is more.” Paul Rudolph has clarly stated the implications of Mies’ point of view: “All problems can never be solved...Indeed it is a charateristic of the twentieth century that architects are highly selective in determining which problems they want to solve. Mies, for instance, makes woderful buildings only because he ignores many aspects of a building. If he solved more problems, his buildings would be far less potent.” The doctrine “less is more” bemoans complexity and justifies ex-

xperid with began at with orking ontithat firm.

He printed a few letter Ms by letterpress, pasted them down on a cube, and photographed them from different perspectives.

This

unique

process

yielded

dramatic

black and white letterforms in perspective and formed the basis of many engaging abstract compositions.

In the midst of his emotionally satisfying work one will also occasionally encounter work in his repertoire that is undeniably Swiss in its original flavor – calm, rational and clear.

‘That’s my schizophrenic personality,’ says Weingart. As much as he tries to be expressive with

Complexity and Contradiction vs Simplification or Pircturesqueness

clusion for expressive purposes. I does, indeed, permit exclusion for expressive purposes, permit the architect to be highly selective in determining which problems he wants to solve. But if the architect must be committed to his particular way of seeing the universe, such a commitment surely means that the architect determines how problems should be solved, not that he can determine which of the problems he will solve. He can exlude imporant considerations only at the risk of separating architecture from the experience of life and the needs of society. If some problems prove insoluble, he can express this: in an inclusive rather than an exclusive king of architecture there is room for the fragment, for contradiction, for improvisation, and for the tension these produce. Mies’ exquisite pavilions have had valuable implication for architecture, but their selectiveness language is their limitation as well as their strength.

type, he feels that there are times when the

clients’

wishes

and the users’ needs are of a more urgent priority.

Weingart

simply knows when he has to put his ego aside and emphasize on solving particular design problems. It is the tension between his desire to express and his consideration for

communication

that creates this interesting mix of work and his perpetually inquisitive ethos.

working

He question the relevance of analogies between pravilons and houses, especially anologies between Japanese pavilions and recent domestic architecture. They ignore the real complexity and contradiction inherent in the domestic program - the spatial and technological possibilities as well as the need for variety in visual experience. Forced simplicity results in oversimplification. In the Wiley House, for instance, in contrast to his glass house, Philip Johnson attempted to go beyond the simplicities of the elegant pavilion. He explicitly separated and articulated the enclosed “private functions” of living on a ground floor pedestal, thus separating them from the open socual functions in the modular pavilion above. But even here the building becomes a diagram of an oversimplified pro-

gram for living - an abstract theory of either-or. Where simplicity cannot work, simpleness results. Blatant simplification means bland architecture. Less is a bore. The recognition of complexity in architecture does not negate what Lous Kahn has called “the desire for semplicity”. But aesthetic simplicity which is satisfaction to the mind derives, when valid and profound, from inner complexity. The Doric temple’s simplicity to the eye is achieved through the famous subtleties and precision of its distorted geometry and the contradictions and tensions inherent in its order. The Doric temple could achieve apparent simplicity through real complexity. When complexity disappeared, as in the la temples, blandness replaced simplicity.

Not does complexity deny the valid simplification which is part of the precess of analysis, and even a method of achieving complex architecture itself. “We oversimplify a given event when we characteriza it from the standpoint of a given interest.” But this kind of simplification is a method in the analytical process of achieving a complex art. It should not be mistaken for a goal. An architecture of complexity and contradiction, however, does not mean picturesqueness or subjective expressionism. A false complexity has recently countered the false simplicity of an earlier Modern architecture. It promotes an architecture of symmetrical picturesqueness - which Minoru Yamasaki calls “serene” - but it representes a new formalism as unconnected with experience as

The New Academy ’s knowing, of ten slick iterations have le , such as s e m a n t i c resurface. Much of this recent work steps outside the lineag o f i When t s p one r a clooks t i t for i o experimental ners com e f r o mtoday, f i what n e one a r tfinds , p ish not o t so o gmuch r a pnew h i ctypography, o r l i ta typography structuralist dissection is disappearing. The look and structure of the letter is underplayed and verbal signific sometimes decidedly anti-formal, despite the presence of some New Wave elements. Reacting to the techn favor of the directness of unmannered, hand-drawn or vernacular forms-- after all, technical exp

neglected design elements

Here on the edges of graphic design, the presence of the sometimes so oblique that certain pieces would seem to our popular culture. Reflecting current linguistic theor bulary is less important than the dialogue between the w a y s t a t e m e n t s f r o m d e s i g n e r . The layering of content, as opposed to

Objective communication is enhanced by deferred meanings, hidden stories a Sources for much current experimentation can be traced to recent fine ar

post-structuralism, critics and artists deconstruct verbal language as a filter o

i s a p p l i e d t o a r t a n d p h o t o g r a p h y, f o r m i s t r e a t e d a s a v i s u a l l a n g u a g e t o b e r e m e a n i n g s d e c o d e d . C l e a r l y, t h i s i n t e l l e c t u a l i z e d c o m m u n i c a t i o n a s k s a l o t o f

the former cult of simplicity. Its intricate forms do not reflect genuinely complex programs, and its intricate ornament, though dependent on industrial techniques for execution, is dryly reminescent of forms originally created by handicraft techniques. Gothic tracery and Rococò rocaille were not only expressively valid in relation to the whole, but came from a valid showing-off of hand skills and expressed a vitality derived from the immediacity and individuality for the method. This kind of complexity through exuberance, perhaps impossible today, is the antithesis of “serene” architecture, despite the superficial resemblance between them. But if exuberance is not characteristic of our art, it is tension, rather than “serenity” that would appear to be so.

eft some graphic designers dissatisfied. As a result, l o n g e x p r e s s i o n i n f o r m , t e x t a n d i m a g e r y, a r e b e g i n n i n g t o g e o f B a u h a u s / B a s e l / N e w Wa v e , a n d n o t s u r p r i s i n g l y, s o m e r a r relationships y b a c k gbetween r o u n dtext s and r a image. t h e r Int fact, han r a p h i cso dcelebrated e s i g n over t r the a i past n i nten g .years of ase new the gtypography cation, interacting with imagery and symbols, is instead relied upon. The best new work is often aformal and nical perfection of mainstream graphic design, refinement and mastery are frequently rejected in pertise is hardly a revelation anymore.

These desi

gners value exp e designer is ression over sty le. spring directly from y, t h e n o t i on o f “a u t h o r s h i p” a s a p e r s on a l , f o r m a l vo c a graphic object and its audience; no longer are there one-

o New Wave’s formal layering of collage elements, is the key to this exchange. and alternative interpretations. rt and photography, and to literary and art criticism. I n f l u e n c e d b y F r e n c h

o r b i a s t h a t i n e s c a p a b l y m a n i p u l a t e s t h e r e a d e r ’s r e s p o n s e . W h e n t h i s a p p r o a c h

ead as well as seen. Both the texts and the images are to be read in detail, their i t s a u d i e n c e ; t h i s i s h a r d e r w o r k t h a n t h e f o r m a l p l e a s u r e s o f N e w Wa v e .

NEW THEORIES

New wave graphic design was an experi ment in formal issues, often indulgent, frequently analogous to the postmodern movement in architecture, and equally controversial at its inception. Yet, even as postmodernism spread quickly throughout all the arts -including music, literature, fine arts and theater- a new influece arrived in design education. Poststructuralist critical theories, including deconstruction, began to find their way out of literary criticism and into several of the more theoretical and experimental of U.S. graphic design programs. Coming largerly out of French literary theory, the emphasis here is not on the author/ creator(as in new wave) or on the scientific contruction of the design solution itself (as in funcional modernism), but rather on the reader/wiewer and the possibility of multiple interpretations. Application of these theories offer the opportunity for other, more subjective and personal layers of meaning, in addition to the purely objective and the informational. These strategies encourage new wave graphic designers to work with layers of meaning and content, as well as layers of form. In addition, this new focus on audience interpretation challenges designers to tailor their visual messages to the audience.

deconstruction of meaning

holds important lessons , but poses some about our audiences for visual communicators d the existence of problems as well. While these theories applau ying cultural context unstable meaning because of audicencesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; var s with the clientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and personal experiences, this can be at odd message. need for a single, clear interpretation of the

The

Designers find themselves cast in an authoritarian role within this critique. And the focus on theoretical and critical language dynamics sometimes seems to diminish visual values in graphic

EW HERIS of

experimentally

of visual literature.

but

teach,

also

practice

community

have

now

only

i m p o r t a n t l y,

Most

It was as if no one had heard. The whistle blew again - a shrill, prolonged noise followed by three short blasts of ear-splitting violence: a vuolence without purpose that remained without effect. There was no more reaction - no further exclamation than there had been at firt; not one feature of one face had even trembled. A motioneless and parallel seies of strained, almost anxious stare crossed - tried to cross - struggled against the narrowing space that still separated them from theri goal. Every head was raised, one next to the other, in a identical attitude. A last puff of heavy, noiseless steam formed a great plum in the air above them, and vanished as soon as it had appeared. Slightly to one side, behind the area in which the steam had just appeared, one passenger stood apart from the expectant group. The whistle had had no more effect on his withdrawal than on the passionate attiontion of his neighbors. Standing like them, his body and limbs rigid, he kept his eyes on the deck. He had often heard the story before. When he was still a child - perhaps twenty-five or thirty years ago - he had had a big cardboard box, an old shoebox, in which he collected pieces of string. Not any string, not scraps of inferior quality, worn, frayed bits that had been spoiled by overuse, not pieces too short to be good for anything. This one would have been just right. It was a thin hemp cord in perfect condition, carefully rolled into a figure eight, with a few extra turns wound around the middle. It must be pretty long - a yard at least, perhaps two. Someone had probably dropped it by mistake after having rolled it up for future use - or else for a collection. Mathias bent down to retrieve it. As he straightened up again he noticed, a few feet to the right, a little girl of seve or eight gravely staring at him, her eyes enormous and calm. He smiled hesitantly, but she did not bother to smile back, and it was only after several seconds that he saw her eyes shift toward the wad of string he was holding at the level of his chest. He was not disappointed by a closer look: it was a real find - not too shiny, firmly and regularly twisted, and evidently very strong. For a moment he thought he recognized it, as if it were something he had lost long ago. A similar cord once must have occupied an important place in his thoughts. Would it be with the others in the shoebox? His memory immediately edged

educators

Alain RoOYEUR bbe-Grill et

might be considered a fo rm

not

who

THE V

and

dominance has done in advertising design.

initiate original theory and research i n g r a d u a t e s t u d i e s . We seem finally to have reached a fair consensus that graphic design is not commercial art but true professiona l discipline encompassing practic e, education and theory. B u t w e h ear a continuing debat e as to whether this pr ofession should learn toward art or toward science . The most recent influen ces add a thir contender to the a rt/science debate. Litera ry and critical thorists se e design as a language to be read - that graphic design

design, leading to a predominantly verbal approach, as copywritingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Although all three orientations are

preoccupied with communication and meaning,

each stresses

a different component of the sender-transmitter-receiver communication model.

d with e n r e c n ; co s art is nd expression a n g i s a De content l a n o s per

design as science i s concern with the ed systemat ic presen ion of ob tajective in formation :

is s language a n g i s e d d an nh the audie t i w d e n r e c con n interpretatio r o g n i d a e r ce’s ontent. of text and c

away toward the indefinite light of a rainy landscape, in which a piece of string played no perceptible part. He had only to put it in his pocket. But no sooner had he begun the gesture than he stopped, his arm half-bent, undecided, gazing at his hand. He saw that his nails were too long, which he already knew. He also noticed that in growing their shape had become exaggeratedly pointed; naturally he did not file them to look like that. The child was still staring in his direction, but it was difficult to be sure she was looking at him and not at something behind him, or wven at nothing at all; her eyes seemed almost too wide to be able to focus on a single object, unless it was one of enormous size. She must have been looking at the sea. Mathias let his arm fall to his side. Suddenly the engines stopped. The vibration ceased at once, as well as the continuous rumbling sound that ha accompanied the ship since its departure. All the passengers remained silent, motionless, pressed close togheter at the entrance to the already crowded corridor through which they would eventually leave the ship. Most of them, ready for the disembarkation for some time, held their luggage in their hands, and all were facing left, their eyes fixed on the top of the pier where about twenty people were standing in a compact group, equally silent and rigid, looking for a familiar face in the crowd on the little steamer. In each group the expressions were identical: strained, almost anxious, strangely petrified and uniform. The ship moved ahead under its own momentum, and the only sound that could be heard was the rustling of water as it slid past the hull. A gray gull, flying from astern at a speed only slightly greater than that of the ship, passed slowly on the port side in front of the pier, gliding at the level of the bridge without the slightest movement of its wings, its head cocked, one eye fixed on the water below - one round, indifferent, inexpressive eye. There was the sound of an electric bell. The engines started up again. The ship began to make a turn that brought it gradually closer to the pier. The coast rapidly extended along the other side: the squat lighhouse strped clack and white, the half-ruined fort, the sluice gates of the tidal basin, the row of houses on the quay. “She’s on time today,” said a voice.”Almost,” someone corrected - perhaps it was the same voice. Mathias looked at his watch. The crossing had lasted exactly three hours.

Ty t o

t e n w i

sen

i s o

It would seem that the answer to this debate is that alla three components are valuable - that nearly every communitcation problem requires an understanding of all three. In a mature profession, there is both the room and the need for specialized inquiry, and our schools can offer intesive investigations of the entire spectrum, each choosing its orientation based on its resources and potential. Certainly, graphic design will be the richer for the exploration of all three directions.

Much new typography is very quiet.

Some of the most interesting, in fact, is impossible to show here because of its radically modest scale or its subtle development through a sequence of pages. Some is bold in scale but so matter-of-fact that it makes little in the way of a visual statement. (One designer calls these strictly linguistic intent i o n s “nonallusive” typography. )

r a n g e

f r o m

t h e

c l a s s i c s

o f C o p y i s . s f i r e s a l s a n s words- n d u s t r i i n e t blocks of f d o e t a i t n undiffere her Wa v e , w t t h a t - s w u e j N s f a o d a t i o n s n t r e a t e . T e x m a n i p u l d e r e n n their parts a s s m e r e p x h e t t h o u t n xploded to playfully e e l a y g r o u r a p s d r o c w i t d n c a a s e ntenc h e s y n t

s f

p e f a c e s b a n a l ,

n o w

e r t . n o l o n g e n d a n t s c s e d s ’ r t We i n g a

These cryptic, poker-faced juxtapositions of text and image do not always strive for elegance or refinement, although they may a c h i e v e i t i n a d v e r t e n t l y. T h e f o c u s n o w i s o n e x p r e s s i o n t h r o u g h semantic content, utilizing the intellectual software of visual language as well as the structural hardware and graphic grammar of Modernism. It is an interactive process that-- as art always anticipates social evolution-- heralds our emerging information e c o n o m y, i n w h i c h m e a n i n g s a r e a s i m p o r t a n t a s m a t e r i a l s .

BIBLIOGRAFIA

Typography as discourse, Katherine McCoy with David Frej, ID Magazine, New York, March/April 1988, pp. 34-37 Lessons From Swiss Style Graphic Design, Diogo Terror, Smashing Magazine, July 17th, 2009 Helvetica, Looking Closer 3: Classic Writings on Graphic Design, Michael Bierut, New York: Allworth Press. 1999 Wolfgang Weingart’s Typography Landscape, Keith Tam, Keith Chi-hang Tam Typography, Hong Kong

Complexity and Contradiction vs Simplification or Pircturesqueness, Complexity and contradiction in architecture, Robert Venturi, Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1966 New Theories, Steven Heller, The Education of a Graphic Designer, 2005

The Voyeur, (pag. 3-7), Alain Robbe-Grillet, Published by Grove Press, New York, 1958

The future lies ahead of us, but behind us there is also a great accumulation of history – a resource for imagin a t i o n a n d c r e a t i v i t y. I think we call ‘creative’ that dynamism of intellectual conception that flows back and forth between the future and the past. Kenya Hara, Designing Design (2007)

Mixing characterizes the social life of design. Visual communications elicit divergent responses in a crowded landscape of competing message. Ellen Lupton, Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture (1996)