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Typography in the 1920’s was undergoing a dramatic change. The Constructivist movement had taken hold with the goal of creating a new technological societ y. The movement promoted a scientific language of design which focused on the mechanical aspec ts of modern existence. Power and speed became the themes of the machine age, shapes were streamlined and simplified, curved letterforms were replaced with angular, sleek ones. This was also a time of international appeal for the decorative movement of Art Deco. Following the Constructionist teachings that originated in Russia, and later were to influence major movements such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl, typographic designers avoided the use of serifs and created new type-faces which, according to Herbert Bayer, “reflected the notion of beauty in utility.” These new fonts were highly legible and especially served the commercial world. At the same time, Art Deco posters were becoming the most successful means of advertising. Counter to the strict structure instilled through Constructivism, they employed bold design flourishes and much less “utilitarian” type-faces. Jan Tschichold was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1902. A talented artist from an early age, he was steered away from the arts by his father. His father, who was a sign painter, had warned Jan to avoid the ‘life of the artist’ (vruba). In order to combine his love and skill in the arts with his fathers advice, Tschichold attended the “Akademie for Grafische Künste and Buchgewerbe” in Leipzig from 1919-23. While there, he focused his studies on becoming a teacher of draftsmanship. After attending the first Bauhaus exhibition in 1923, Tschichold began work on what would become Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography), which would be published in 1928.
Born 26 years later in Unterseen, Switzerland, Adrian Frutiger shared a similar upbringing to Tschichold. Raised the son of a weaver, Frutiger’s father discouraged him from pursuing his interest in sculpture. He was instead encouraged to work in printing. At the age of 16, Frutiger began working as a printer’s apprentice near his home town. He later moved to Zurich to study at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts. While there, Frutiger produced a series of wood-engraved illustrations for Schrift / Écriture / Lettering: the development of European letter types carved in wood. These engravings caught the attention of Charles Peignot, of the Paris foundry Deberny Et Peignot. Peignot thought that the engravings demonstrated immense skill, meticulousness, and knowledge of letter forms. After graduating, Frutiger was offered a position at Deberny Et Peignot where he worked translating classic typefaces used with traditional printing methods to newer phototypesetting technologies. With the early influence of the Bauhaus helping form his own opinions on both typography as well as design, Tschichold formed a core set of ideas that were nearly as radical as those of Walter Gropius. However, where Gropius, and the Bauhaus in general, tried to integrate text more tightly with the manufacturing technology and design fashions of the day, Tschichold wanted it to remain outside of design to allow it to stand on its own. Instead of recognizing and designing for the laws of mechanical production, the previous generation contented itself with anxiously trying to follow a tradition that was imaginary in the first place. Before them stand the works of today, untainted by the past; primary shapes that form our time: car, airplane, telephone, radio, factory, neon advertising, New York! These objects, designed without reference to the esthetics of the past, are creations of a new kind of man: the engineer! (The New Typography)
ABC Ts c h i c h o l d e n v i s i o n e d h o w t h i s m i n i m a l i s m c o u l d b e a p p l i e d to ever yday life, such as books and papers, and not just to avant- garde posters. He found ways to incorporate these new stylings with some traditional thoughts on typographic layout as well. He thought that in t y p o g ra p hy, a b o o k s h o u l d b e designed so that the page propor tion was always 2:3, w i t h m a r g i n p r o p o r t i o n s t h a t a r e a l w a y s 1:1: 2: 3 w i t h t h e text area proportioned in the Golden Section.
The Industrial Revolution was changing printing. With each new press designed or ink formulated, the variety of print runs that could be c r e a t e d i n c r e a s e d . H o w e v e r, most designers were not taking advantage of this n e w te chn o l o g y, ins tea d,
DEFGHIJKLM they were repeating old habits and maintaining principles that did little to im p rove l e gib ili t y, g o o d proportion, or beauty in their work.
There were rare exceptions to this rule, William Morris, Stanley Morrison and Art Nouveau among them, but Ts c h i c h o l d ’s N e w Ty p o g r a p h y was the first movement to really take advantage of c o n s i s t e n t p a p e r, r e l i a b l y sharp letterforms, aligned multiple colors, diagonal setting, full-page plates, and other wonders of the newer presses. It was an
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artistic revolution at a time of extremely political art. Tschichold also referred to New Typography as asymmetrical typography. It did away with the central axis of conventional graphic design; pages do not reflect each other, centered and flush text is mixed indiscriminately, and no special effort is made to keep everything smooth-looking. Heavy lines divide sections, important phrases are in a contrasting font and weight, page numbers could be anywhere, notes invade the main textblock, proportions are loose Most of these ideas were not even considered before the Bauhaus, and first used well by the New Typography. It is also during this time – the early 1930’s – that Tschichold designed 3 of the 4 primary typefaces for which he is best known; Transit (1931), Zeus (1931) and Saskia (1931/32). Shortly after the Nazi’s came to power in 1933, Tschichold was arrested for “threatening the German morality” with New Typography, and stripped of a prestigious professorship – granted by Paul Renner – at the German Master Printers’ School. After six weeks in “protective custody” he made his way to Switzerland, where he had been offered a small retainer by Banno Schwabe, a small printer in Basel. It was during his time in Switzerland that Tschichold began to see that his initial teachings on typographic design were not necessarily accurate. He began to realize that asymmetry and symmetry were not mutually exclusive, but rather, were two means of accomplishing the same goal, and therefore can and should be used together (Mclean, 10). His time in Switzerland designing books was starting to create a reputation for Tschichold throughout Europe. In 1947, he was brought over to Penguin Books in England. Prior to his arrival, he had hand notated every single book that Penguin had published to date – over 500. These notations were circulated to the editorial staff at Penguin
and are considered to be a typographical education themselves (Mclean, 11-2). To standardize Penguin, Tschichold wrote the now-famous four page Penguin Composition Rules leaflet that laid out all of the rules and guidelines he expected to be followed in the creation of the books to be printed at Penguin. He only remained at Penguin for three years, but in that time he is credited with doing more for improving the standards of British book design than anyone had ever done. About this same time, Adrian Frutiger was beginning what would become one of the most prolific careers in font design ever. Unlike Tschichold, who was known more for his design and typographic layout than for his typefaces themselves, Frutiger was almost exclusively a type designer, having created 30 entire font families in his career. His first commercial typeface, PrÊsident, was created in 1954. He is probably best know for the font families Univers, Frutiger and Avenir, although many of his typefaces can be found in use even today. Straddling the use of both metal type and photo type, Univers was created in response to Bauer foundry’s Futura typeface. Frutiger disliked Futura’s rigid geometry and thought that his new typeface should be based on the neo-grotesque (realist) model. Basing Univers on Akzidenz Grotesk, Frutiger maintained such tight controls on the creation of the typeface that before he allowed a single matrice to be cut he had all 21 variants drawn and approved to ensure they maintained unity across the entire family. The introduction of Univers also brought about the first time that two-digit numeration was used to indicate the font weight and width. This is also about the same time that Jan Tschichold was getting a brief from a group of German master printers requesting a new type that would appear the same whether it were hand set from
foundr y type or machine set by Monotype or Linotype in order to allow for it to be interchanged. In addition to this, already daunting task, it was required to maintain an easy and pleasant legibility and be able to be used for all printing purposes. In the 19 6 8 P e n r o s e A n n u a l, J o h n D r e y f u s w a s q u o t e d a s s t a t i n g : “Such a brief to many type designers would have appeared not merely daunting but dispiriting” (qtd. by M clean). N ot o n l y d i d Ts c h i c h o l d t a k e u p this challenge with great enthusiasm, but his skill in doing so led to a type that “. . . i s a n a d m i r a b l e f a c e , s t r o n g y e t r e s t r a i n e d . . .” ( S e b a s t i a n Car ter qtd. by Mclean). Sabon was immediately p r a i s e d a n d Ts c h i c h o l d ’ s
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annotated drawings for it have occasionally been reproduced as educational materials since.
I n 19 6 8 , w i t h t h e d a w n i n g of the digital age, many companies began working on machines that could read text d i r e c t l y. E v e n t o d a y, m o s t scanners include a form of charac ter recognition soft ware. Frutiger worked on a new font that was to be designed to all ow a ma chin e to ‘rea d ’ the t ype from an image. This O ptical Charac ter Recognition font (OCR) was created in Europe for Monot ype at the s a m e t i m e A m e r i c a n Ty p e Founders was also working on an O CR font. Frutig er ’s type would become known as OCR- B, and along with
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We igh Univers represented the first time two-digit numeration was used to indicate the font weight and width.
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American Type Founders (called OCR-A), became the best known of the character recognition fonts created at that time. While not quite as effective when it came to having a machine recognize the type, Frutiger’s OCR-B was much easier for a human to read. Shortly after finishing Univers, Frutiger left Deberny Et Peignot to start his own studio. In 1975, Frutiger was asked to design a new typeface that would be visible from both great distances as well as from acute angles that could be used in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. Frutiger originally considered simply modifying Univers for these new signs, but thought that it would appear too 1960’s. He settled on creating a new typeface that was a combination of his Univers font blended with some of the humanistic qualities of Gill Sans. Originally designed as a one off font to be used solely by the Airport, it was renamed Frutiger when it was released by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for public use. In the late 1980’s, Frutiger again went to work on a new typeface that was based on Futura. He completed Avenir, which is French for future, in 1988, again including a complete series of unified weights. By the late 1990’s, Frutiger was refining and expanding his most popular fonts as well as addressing hinting issues that appeared as his earlier fonts moved into the digital age. Univers was reissued as Univers Platinum, containing 63 variants of weight and width. He also rereleased Frutiger and Avenir as Frutiger Next and Avenir Next, similarly expanding their families as well. With his death in 1974, Jan Tschichold’s career came to an abrupt end. From the Bauhaus stylings that helped form his extreme modernist views of his youth to the Swiss International style that helped usher in a renaissance of classical stylings later in his life, Tschichold was a
consummate designer. And while he never produced a large quantity of typefaces directly, his typographic design has set a standard for which subsequent generations of typographers and designers continue to strive to emulate and expand on. While Tschichold’s career ended early, Adrian Frutiger has continued his work as one of only a few typographers whose career spans across hot metal, photographic and digital typesetting. Always striving to improve upon his work and keep it relevant with the latest technologies, he has continued to revisit his typefaces, ensuring that they are kept up-to-date in their design and relevant to the current technology being used.
Bibliography Mclean, Ruari. Jan Tschichold: A Life in Typography. Princeton Architectural Press. 1997. Print. Tschichold, Jan. The New Typography:A Handbook for Modern Designers. Translated by Ruari McLean. University of California Press. 1998. Print. vruba. Jan Tschichold. http://everything2.com/title/Jan+Tschichold. Web. http://www.jan-tschichold.com. Web. http://www.identifont.com/show?14O. Web. http://www.designishistory.com/1940/adrian-frutiger/. Web.
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graph anche Designer:
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Course:
Typography 3 ***
Faculty:
Francheska Guerrero ***
Typefaces: Avenir Egyptienne Frutiger Glypha Herculanum OCRB Sabon Serifa Univers