german innovation > on typographers Jan Tschichold and Erik Spiekermann
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Typographers Jan Tschichold and Erik Spiekermann
Throughout histo others
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ory, societies look to to find innovation and inspiration. Culturally, Germany has always had an artistic aesthetic outlook that was like no other. From Guttenberg to the German Expressionist and the Bauhaus, they have always led the race in design and artistic quality. German Typographers, Jan Tschichold and Erik Spiekermann, share in this innovation with their clean, classical and functinal systematic approach to typeface design. Though they are decades apart, influenced by different historical and artistic movements, and their own typeface designs differ greatly from each other, they are pioneers in simplicity, minimalism, and strong view point of German typeface design.
Born in Leipzig, Germany on April 2, 1902, Jan Tschichold is one of the most influential typographers of the 20th century. He is the son of scriptwriter Franz Tschichold and his wife Maria nee Zapf.
A s a c h i l d , Ts c h i c h o l d w o u l d h e l p h i s f a t h e r and learned how script lettering was formed that it would hold a place in his future. Instead, he wanted to be a fine arts painter, but his parents thought that this particular “profession was too unstable”, and he would not be able to make a steady living with it (Linotype). Tschichold decided he would become a drawing teacher and started his teaching seminar in Grimma after finishing his studies at the age of 14.
He died at the age of 74 in Switzerland in 1974. Growing up, Tschichold was immersed in the artist’s movements of Cubism and German Expressionism. The Bauhaus, Russian Expressionists and modern painters, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky left a massive impression on him and heavily influenced his work later on.
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   o n n u m e r o u s o c c a s i o n s and written, without thinking
one of the most i n f l u e n t i a l typographers of the 20th century
Erik Spiekermann was born in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony, Germany on May 20, 1947 and is often described as being
an informational architect. As a child of twelve, he “had a little printing press and taught” himself “to set type” thus setting the gears in motion.
He studied
Art History and English at the Free University of Berlin. After
graduating from university, he spent the 1970’s in London as a freelance designer for Filmcompostition, Wolf Olins and others, as well as teaching at the London College of Printing (Designers & Books). The Modernist Movement of Britain during the seventies as well as, the New Subjectivity movement greatly induced part of his typographical designs.
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German typographers are renowned for being emerged in their craft and masters it. Because of Tschichold’s father's occupation, it gave him an early insight into the various forms and characteristics of written scripts. The 1914 World’s Fair for Books and Graphics was a detrimental experience for Tschichold. After the World's Fair, “he studied books written by Edward Johnston (Calligraphy, Ornamental Script and Applied Script) and books by Rudolf von Larisch (Study in Ornamental Writing)” (Linotype). From these books, he created several calligraphic writings and “began to form an interest in old typefaces” (Linotype). At the age of 16, he borrowed from the “half finished letters” from the 17th century work, Grajon’s italic, to form the “capitals and lower case” italics of his manuscript (Linotype). Three years later, he decided to discontinue his teaching studies after realising “he wanted to be a typeface designer” and enrolled in the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig in 1919 (Linotype).
During his time at the Academy of Graphic Arts, he learned copperplate, woodcutting, wood engraving and bookbinding. Tschichold also became the favourite of his Professor, Herman Delitsch. His professor frequently said,
“ Th e r e wa s n ot a n y t h i n g h e Ts c h i c h o l d d i d n o t a l r e a d y Because of this, Delitsch gave Tschichold free rein on whatever he wanted. In 1921, at the age of 19, Tschichold’s academy director, von Tiemann, asked if he would teach a script writing class. During the same time, Rudolf Koch from Offenbach was outputting several successful works. Tschichold was so impressed by Koch’s Maximilian Grotesk, that he adopted Koch’s handwriting as a model for numerous design (Linotype).
He also looked at the scripts of Simon-Pierre Fournier and other “old script master” books along with writing a number of trade fairs adverts in calligraphic style for the city of Leipzig from 1921 to 1925 (Linotype).
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Typography during the 1920’s was a mixture of several elements combined together
without much thought. Most typefaces were robust or used in bold weight with the regular weights hardly ever being used, and good typography was rarely ever found.
Tschichold carefully looked at these “deficiencies”, which helped become the themes, “arrangement of typefaces, questions of the construction of a book title, etc.”, of his work throughout his life (Linotype). The beginning of the twenties however, led to the popularity of the typeface Bodoni and sparked the interest of Tschichold. Finally, in 1923, he began working in the, then, unknown profession of a typographic designer for Fischer & Wittig (Linotype).
Around the same time that Tschichold was working at Fischer & Wittig, the Bauhaus showed an exhibition in Weimar that left a deep impression and interest in the style of “the New Typography” (Dodd 101). The Bauhaus heavily influenced his typographic forms and designs. He soon became irritated by the typography around him after seeing the exhibition (Linotype).
“abandon symmetrical use
Tschichold believed in
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ing the rules, adopting setting and the exclusive of sans serif typefaces.” Then in 1925, he published the article ‘Elementary Typography’ in the October edition of ‘Typographic News’ magazine (Linotype). The article described the “new approach to typographic design” (Dodd) and aroused interest and heated debates on the matter as well as making Tschichold a household name with every typesetter (Linotype). However, as the Nazis gained political power in Germany, Tschichold fell under suspicion as a left-wing radical (Dodd). After “having a search of his house, temporary imprisonment, and the loss of his job,” Tschichold and his family fled to Switzerland in 1933 (Linotype). There, he watched the Nazi party demolish and regress the advances and achievements he had made in German typographical design. Tschichold’s new beginnings in Switzerland were difficult and frustrating for the designer. There was a lack of interest in the work he was producing. In 1942, “Typeface Theory, Practices and Sketches” was published and marked the abandoning of “the Bauhaus and elementary influence” he had and his return to his roots—classic typography and art (Linotype). Tschichold devoted himself to book typography and the classical uses of typography and design.
Unlike Tschichold, Spiekermann was drawn to the typographical arts as a child, which eventually led him to become a letterform designer. During his time at university, he “made a living as a letterpress printer and hot metal typesetter” (Step Inside Design). He returned to Berlin in 1979 and with two partners started
Germany’s largest design firm,
MetaDesign with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco (Designers & Books). MetaDesign has worked with various clients on projects including: “Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Heidelberg Printing, Berlin Transit, The City of Berlin, Dusseldorf Airport, and others” (Step Inside Design).
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Then in 1988, he and his wife Joan Spiekermann along with Neville Brody launched FontShop, the first independent digital typeface foundry and font distributor in Berlin (FontShop). It marked the beginning of Spiekermann’s ventures into the world of digital type.
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With the success of FontShop, Spiekermann teamed up again with graphic designer Neville Brody to create FontFont,
“the largest independent foundry of original type designs.� The idea for FontFont came about because of the great designs that were coming out of the Netherlands,
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Particularly with designers Just van Rossum and Erik van Blokland, who had worked with Spiekermann at MetaDesign (The FontFeed). It was also the right time to set up FontFont because “there were new typefaces that the big foundries: Monotype, Compugraphic, Adobe and Linotype, wouldn’t even look at” (The FontFeed). FontFont “claims to hold the world’s largest collection of contemporary typefaces” (Dodd). The success of FontFont and FontShop, also brought the success of Spierkermann’s book “Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works” published in 1993 for Adobe Press and “helped redefine the principles of typographic communication” (Dodd).
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In 20 stop stealing sheep. . .
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0 1, Spierkermann was asked to redesign the London magazine ‘The Economist’ (Designers & Books). “Stop Stealing Sheep” was also reissued that same year as a second edition and published in German, Russian and Portuguese versions. After leaving MetaDesign, he started SpiekermannPartners, “a collaboration of many designers he had worked with over the years” (Step Inside Design). SpiekermannPartners’ clientele includes Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, ‘The Economist’, Pioneer Investment, Cisco Systems, Gravis, Messe Frankfurt, Nokia, and many more (Designers & Books). Today, Spiekermann is an Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen.
Technology plays a vital role in many professions especially in typographical design. When Bodoni became popular in the 1920’s, its metal press letters became a source of inspiration for Tschichold’s design of the typeface Sabon. In 1967, he designed his most popular, classical and important typeface. It was modelled after the “1952 Garamond interpretation, which Jacob Sabon and Conrad Berner produced in Frankfurt” (Linotype).
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It was the first typeface to be produced forms for the “linotype, monotype and Tschichold designed the face as a “foundry type for hand setting and hot metal casting, with the intention that it should be suitable for all printing techniques” (Dodd 101). There were originally three weights for Sabon: normal, italic and semibold. Tschichold also designed the typefaces: Classical Garamond, Iwan Reschniev and
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Iwan Stencil.
Then in 1984, Linotype expanded Sabon family by adding a cursive semibold weight. Tschichold’s move from Berlin to Switzerland heavily influenced Sabon’s classic style and it is one of the most elegantly designed serifs.
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Sabon
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For Spiekermann, the press that he used as a child inspired the way he saw and used type in the digital world. For a type designer
one needs to be modest. “It is not about him or her, but about the reader” and with typeface design “you are designing not the black marks on the page, by the space in between.”
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Spiekermann is known for his distinct perspective, especially in the narrowness of his type designs, and approach to designing typefaces. To him, there are five things that make a good typeface:
> What makes a good typeface is decided by the users, not the designer
> Most good typefaces have been designed for one purpose, they do not come from a designer's whim
> There are certain laws of perception as well as cultural traditions which a typeface has to adhere to
> It has to look almost like all the other BUT
> Just be a little different
From these objectives, Spiekermann has created some of the most renowned typefaces of our time (The Typographic Times).
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the “angled terminals” that “vigorously bent-off
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In 1984, Spiekermann met with the German Post Office to create a typeface that called for “the detailed requirements of small type on bad paper”(The Typographic Times). From this, he designed the Helvetica of the 90’s, FF Meta. The humanist sans serif is a sturdy, but very legible typeface for text at small sizes. Its uniqueness is found within
gives it a pleasing, informal quality along with the tips of vertical stokes” in the letters ‘m’, ‘d’, and ‘k’.
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The slight tails of the ‘l’, ‘t’, ‘j’ and ‘y’ add to the relaxed tonality. One of Spiekermann’s goals was to make the typeface have “slightly varying width[s]” so that in smaller sizes the thinner strokes would not be lost amongst the thicker ones (The Typographic Times). FF Meta pushed the boundaries of what a humanized sans serif could look like. It is type as function and system, but post modernist in its idiosyncratic nature.
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Several years later, Spiekermann designed the slab serif, Officina, which “started under the working title ITC Correspondence” and was designed for office documents produced on “lowresolution (laser) printers” (Typedia). Soon after, he began designing the sans version based on the idea that,
“a typeface for correspondence should retain some typewriter face without the disadvantages of mono For Spiekermann, Officina is his “true classic” and his “redesign of Letter Gothic” (The Typographic Time). His other designs such as: the sans serifs FF Unit, FF Info Text, FF Govan, Axel, and Berliner Grotesk BQ, along with the slab version of FF Unit, hold the same high qualities in typographical usability.
of the quality of a spaced fonts.�
German designers Jan Tschichold and Erik Spiekermann created a
typeface design quality that is unmatched today. They are and were innovators in shaping letterform design in Germany. Their innovative typefaces heavily influence today’s typographic designs and will continue to influence the way we look at typography and letterforms.
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Works Cited Dodd, Robin. From Gutenberg to OpenType: An Illustrated History of Type Form the Earliest Letterforms to the Latest Digital Fonts. Harley and Marks Publishers, May 2006. “Erik Spiekermann.” Identifont.com Web. 18 Oct. 2011. “Erik Spiekermann’s Bio.” Designers & Books. WorldCat. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. “Eric Spiekermann: Tectonic Arranger & Letterform Designer.” Step. Step Inside Design, May-June 2007. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. “Erik Spiekermann.” The Typographic Times Feb. (2006). Planet Typography. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. “FF Meta.” The Typographic Times Feb. (2006). Planet Typography. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. “In Honour of the 100th Birthday of Jan Tschichold.” Linotype.com. Font Magazine. April 2004. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. “Jan Tschichold.” Identifont.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. Kupferschmid, Indra. “ITC Officina Serif.” Typedia.com. 5 Sept. 2009. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. Spierkermann, Erik. “Celebrating 20 Years of FontShop With Erik Spiekermann.” Interview by Yves Peter. The FontFeed. 15 Dec. 2009. Web.
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Designer: Kat White
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colophon
Typefaces: ITC Officina Serif Officina SansEF Meta Sabon Instructor: Francheska Guerrero Class: Typography III