The Book of Type

the book of type

the book of type Jan Tschichold Beatrice Warde Herbert Bayer Josef Muller-Brockmann

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Table of Contents New Life in Print..................................................................................4 Jan Tschichold The Crystal Goblet Or Printing Should Be Invisibe.........................16 Beatrice Warde Towards A Universal Type................................................................24 Herbert Bayer Grid And Design Philosophy............................................................30 Josef MĂźller-Brockmann

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New Life In Print Jan Tschichold The general term “The New Typography” embraces the activities of a few of the younger typographers working principally in Germany, the Soviet Union, Holland, Czechoslovakia, and in Switzerland and Hungary. The inception of the movement in Germany reaches back into the war period. The existence of the New Typography can be said to be due to the personal achievements of its initiators; but to me it seems more accurate to regard these as the exponents of the tendencies and practical needs of our time, a view which by no means attempts to underestimate their extraordinary achievements and creative power or the inestimable value of their individual pioneer work. The movement would never have been so widespread, as in Central Europe it incontestably is, had it not served practical contemporary needs, and this it does so excellently because its primary aim is the unprejudiced adaptation of typography to the purposes of the task in hand.

Here I think it is necessary to briefly describe the state of prewar typographical development. Following upon the stylistic confusion of the eighties, England gave birth to the Arts and Craft movement (Morris 1892), which at least from a typographical standpoint, was mainly influenced by traditional tendencies (limitation of incunabula). In the “Youth style” (Jugendstil, ca. 1900) an attempt was made, without however any permanent success, to break away from traditional models, arriving at a misunderstood off-shoot of the Natural Form (Eckmann), finally to end in a renovated Biedermeier type (Wieynck)—in a word, in a new traditionalism. Then the traditional models were rediscovered and further imitated, albeit on this

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occasion with better understanding (German Book Production 1911-14-20). The reverence for traditional forms evoked by a more intensive research work, resulted naturally in a limitation of creative freedom and forced it at length into inanition. Contrary to expectation, the most important gain resulting from these years was the rediscovery of original traditional faces (Walbaum, Unger, Didot, Bodoni, Garamond, etc.), which for some time and with every justification have been preferred above their “precursors,” in reality their imitators.

The natural reaction to the inanition of prewar typography was the New Typography aiming above all at suppleness in its methods of design.

Two aims can be discerned in all typographical work: the recognition and fulfillment of practical requirements-and the visual design (visual design is a question of aesthetic; it is senseless to attempt to avoid this expression). At this point typography differs not a little from architecture: it is possible (and it has indeed been done by the best architects) that the form of a house may be determined by its practical purpose, but in the case of typography the aesthetic side in the question of design makes itself clearly manifest.

This factor relates typography far more neatly to the domain of “free” design on a plane surface (painting, drawing) than to that of architectural art. Both typography and the graphic arts are always concerned with surface (plane) design. Here at this stage the reason why none other than the “new” painters, the “abstract” painters, were destined to be the initiators of the New Typography.

It is too wide a subject here to give any account of the development of abstract painting in this connection: visit any exhibition of their work and its relation to the New Typography is immediately discernible. This connection is not, as many believe, a formalist

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one but is genetic, a fact which abstract painters themselves have failed to understand. Abstract painting is the “unpurposing” relating of pure color and form without any literary admixtures. Typography signifies the visual (or aesthetic) ordering of given elements (practical requirements, type, pictures, color, etc.), on a plane surface. The difference between painting and typography exists only inasmuch as in the former there is a free choice of elements and the resulting design has no practical purpose. Modern typography therefore cannot be better occupied than with an intensive study of surface composition in abstract painting.

Let me examine the principles followed by prewar typography.

The majestic traditional model knew of only one scheme of design—the medial axis, the axial symmetry whose plainest example was the title page. The whole of typography followed this scheme, whatever its immediate task might be, whether printing a newspaper or a circular, letterheads or advertisements. whatever its immediate task might be, whether printing a newspaper or a circular, letterheads or advertisements.

Only in the postwar period did the dim realization dawn that all these were quite different tasks, making entirely different practical demands to be met creatively by the typographer.

A distinction between the New Typography and the old can only be drawn by means of a negation—the New Typography does not traditionalize. And at the door of the old, whose tendency was purely traditional, the blame for this negation must be laid. But at the same time the New Typography, became of its utter rejection of any formalist limitations, is less antitraditional than nontraditional.

For instance, to achieve typographical design it is permissible to use every traditional and nontraditional face, every manner of plane relationship of every direction of line. The sole aim is design: the

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creative harmonious ordering of the practical requirements. Therefore there exist no limitations such as are imposed by the positing of “permissible” and “forbidden” type conjunctions. The old, unique aim of design to present a “restful” page is also reversed—we are at liberty to present a designed “unrest.”

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The swift tempo of modern business forces us further to a most accurate calculation of economic presentation. Typography had not only to find a simpler and more easily realizable constructive form (than the medial axis) but at the same time had to make this itself more visually attractive and varied in design. Dadaism, through Marinetti in Italy with his “Les mots en liberte futuriste (1919)” and even earlier in Germany, gave the first impulse to the new development in typography. Even today Dadaism is looked upon as sheer idiocy by many who have not taken the trouble to understand its dynamic; only in time to come will the important pioneer work done by those in the schools of Hausmann, Heartfield, Gross, Hulsenbeck, and other Dadaists, be estimated at their proper value. In any case, the handbills and other publications of the Dadaists (which date back into the wartime) were the earliest documents of the New Typography. In 1922 the movement spread; a few abstract painters began typographical experiments. A further impulse was given by the author's supplement (“Elementare Typographie”) of the “Typographische Mitteilungen” (1925, out of print), in which the efforts made and results achieved were demonstrated for the first time and which, published in an edition of 28,000, was broadcast to the printing world. The views of the New Typography were the object of savage attack on all sides – today none but a few disgruntled die-hards ever think of raising their voice against them.

The New NewTypography Typography “ The has has won won through. through.”

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Next to its nontraditional attitude the New Typography is characterized by its preference for new technical processes. It prefers: •

typefounder’s type to engraved type

•

machine setting to hand setting

•

machine-made paper to handmade paper

•

machine presses to hand presses

•

photographs to drawings

•

photo process blocks to woodcuts

•

standardization to individualization, etc.

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The method of the New Typography is based upon a clear realization of purpose and the best means of achieving it. No modern typography, be it never so “beautiful,” is “new” if it sacrifices purpose to form. “Form” is the result of work done and not the realization of an external conception of form. This fact has not been grasped by a whole troupe of pseudo-moderns. The chief demand of the New Typography is the most ideal adaptation to purpose. This makes the omission of any decorative ingredients self-understood. Purpose further demands, and this cannot be too strongly emphasized, really good legibility. Lines too narrowly or too widely spaced and set are difficult to read and therefore, if for no other reason, to be avoided. The proper use of the various new processes produces in nearly every case specific forms and it is the typographer's proper study to recognize these and adapt his design to them. Thus a good typographer without a most thorough knowledge of technical requirements is unthinkable.

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Color is just such another effective element as type. In a certain sense the unprinted surface must be reckoned in with it and the discovery of its effectiveness must be put to the credit of the New Typographers. The white surface is not regarded as a passive background but as an active element. Among actual colors preference is given to red; as “The” color it forms the most effective contrast to the normal black. The clear tones yellow and blue must also be given place in the foreground of interest as these two are not diffuse. Color is not used as a decorative, “beautifying” ingredient, but the peculiar psychophysical properties of each are used as a means to heighten (or tone down) effects.

Illustration is supplied by photography. By this means we are given the most objective rendering of the object.

Whether photography is in itself an art or not an art need not concern us here; in conjunction with type and a plane surface it can be an art, as then it is purely a matter of values, of fitness in

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in structural contrasts and relationships. Many people incline to mistrust graphic illustrations; the old (often falsifying) graphic illustrations no longer convince us and their individualistic pose and mannerisms affect us unpleasantly. If it be desired to give several pictorial impressions at the same time, to display several contrasting things, montage must be called into service. For this the same general methods of design as in typography hold good; used in conjunction with type, the photograph becomes a part of the whole and must be properly evaluated in this connection so as to achieveharmonious design. A rare but very attractive photographic possibility is the photogram of which an example is shown. A photogram is takenwithout a camera simply by placing a more or less transparent object on a sensitized medium (paper, film or plates).

Typography + Photography is termed “Typophoto.”

The extraordinary adaptability of the New Typography to every conceivable purpose renders it an important phenomenon in contemporary life. Its very attitude and position reveal that it is no mere fashion of a moment but is destined to form the basis of all further typographical progress.

Karel Teige of Prague has formulated the main characteristics of the New Typography as follows: “Constructivist Typography” (a synonym for the New Typography) means and requires: 1. Freedom from tradition and prejudice; overthrow of archaicism and academicism and the rejection of decoration. No respect for academic and traditional rules unsupported by visual reason and which are here lifeless form (“the golden section,” unity of type).

2. A choice of type, more perfect, more legible and cut with more geometric simplicity. Understanding of the spirit of the types suitable and their me in accord with the character of the text, contrast of typographical material to emphasize content.

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3. Constant appreciation of purpose· and fulfillment of requirement Differentiation in special aims. Advertisements meant to be seen from a distance require different treatment to a scientific work or a volume of verse.

4. Harmonious disposition of surface and text in accordance with objective visual law; surveyable structure and geometric organization.

5. Exploitation of all means, which are or may be offered by present and future technical discoveries; conjunction of illustration and text by typophoto.

6. The closest cooperation between typographers and experts in the composing room is desirable, just as the designing architect cooperates with the constructional engineer, etc., specialization and division of labor are quite as necessary as close contact.

There is nothing to be added to the above beyond that the “golden section” together with other exact proportional formulas are often far more effective than Ice relationships and should therefore not suffer fundamental exclusion.

First published in Commercial Art (London: July 1930).

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The Crystal Goblet Or Printing Should Be Invisible Beatrice Warde

Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favorite vintage for this imaginary demonstration, so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in color. You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink; and according to your choice of goblet. I shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain.

Bear with me in this long-winded and fragrant metaphor; for you will find that almost all the virtues of the perfect wineglass have a parallel in typography. There is the long, thin stem that obviates fingerprints on the bowl. Why? Because no cloud must come between your eyes arid the fiery heart of the liquid. Are not the margins on book pages similarly meant to obviate the necessity of fingering the type page? Again: the glass is colorless or at the most only faintly tinged in the bowl, because the connoisseur judges wine partly by its color and is impatient of anything that alters it.

There are a thousand mannerisms in typography thatare as impudent and arbitrary as putting port in tumblers of red or green glass!

When a goblet has a base that looks to small for security, it does

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not matter how cleverly it is weighted; you feel nervous lest it should tip over. There are ways of setting lines of type which may work well enough, and yet keep the reader subconsciously worried by the fear of ‘doubling’ lines, reading three words as one, and so forth.

Now the man who first chose glass instead of clay or metal to hold his wine was a “modernist” in the sense in which I am going to use that term. That is, the first thing he asked of this particular object was not “How should it look?” but “What must it do?” and to that extent all good typography is modernist.

Wine is so strange and potent a thing that it has been used in the central ritual of religion in one place and time, and attacked by a virago with a hatchet in another. There is only one thing in the world that is capable of stirring and altering men’s minds to the same extent, and that is the coherent expression of thought. That is man’s chief miracle, unique to man. There is no “explanation” whatever of the fact I can make arbitrary sounds that will lead a total stranger to think my own thought. It is sheer magic that I should be able to hold a one-sided conversation by means of black marks on paper with an unknown person halfway across the world. Talking, broadcasting, writing, and printing are all quite literally forms of thought transference, and it is this ability and eagerness to transfer and receive the contents of the mind that is almost alone responsible for human civilization.

with this, you will agree with my one main idea, i.e., “ Ifthatyoutheagree most important thing about printing is that it conveys

“

thought, ideas, images, from one mind to other minds.

This statement is what you might call the front door of the science of typography. Within lie hundreds of rooms; but unless

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you start by assuming that printing is meant to convey specific and coherent ideas, it is very easy to find yourself in the wrong house altogether.

Before asking what this statement leads to, let us see what it does not necessarily lead to. If books are printed in order to be read, we must distinguish readability from what the optician would call legibility. A page set in 14-pt. Bold Sans is, according to the laboratory tests, more ‘legible’ than one set in 11 pt. Baskerville. A public speaker is more ‘audible’ in that sense when he bellows. But a good speaking voice is one which is inaudible as a voice. It is the transparent goblet again! I need not warn you that if you begin listening to the inflections and speaking rhythms of a voice from a platform, you are falling asleep. When you listen to a song in a language you do not understand, part of your mind actually does fall asleep, leaving your quite separate aesthetic sensibilities to enjoy themselves unimpeded by your reasoning faculties. The fine arts do that; but that is not the purpose of printing. Type well used is invisible as type, just as the perfect talking voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the transmission of words, ideas.

We may say, therefore, that printing may be delightful for many reasons, but that it is important, first and foremost, as a means of doing something. That is why it is mischievous to call any printed piece a work of art, especially fine art: because that would imply that its first purpose was to exist as an expression of beauty for its own sake and for the delectation of the senses. Calligraphy can almost be considered a fine art nowadays, because its primary economic and educational purpose has been taken away; but printing in English will not qualify as an art until the present English language no longer conveys ideas to future generations and until printing itself hands its usefulness to some yet unimaginable successor.

There is no end to the maze of practices in typography, and this idea of printing as a conveyor is, at least in the minds of all the great typographers with whom I have had the privilege of talking, the one clue that can

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guide you through the maze. Without this essential humility of mind, I have seen ardent designers go more hopelessly wrong, make more ludicrous mistakes out of an excessive enthusiasm, than I could have thought possible. And with this clue, this purposiveness in the back of your mind, it is possible to do the most unheard-of things, and find that they justify you triumphantly. It is not a waste of time to go to the simple fundamentals and reason from them. In the flurry of your individual problems, I think you will not mind spending half an hour on one broad and simple set of ideas involving abstract principles.

I once was talking to a man who designed a very pleasing advertising type that undoubtedly all of you have used. I said something about what artists think about a certain problem, and he replied with a beautiful gesture: “Ah, madam, we artists do not think—we feel!” That same day I quoted that remark to another designer of my acquaintance, and he, being less poetically inclined, murmured: “I’m not feeling very well today, I think!” He was right, he did think; he was the thinking sort; and that is why he is not so good a painter, and to my mind ten times better as a typographer and type designer than the man who instinctively avoided anything as coherent as a reason.

I always suspect the typographic enthusiast who takes a printed page from a book and frames it to hang on the wall, for I believe that in order to gratify a sensory delight he has mutilated something infinitely more important. I remember that T. M. Cleland, the famous American typographer, once showed me a very beautiful layout for a Cadillac booklet involving decorations in color. He did not have the actual text to work with in drawing up his specimen pages, so he had set the lines in Latin. This was not only for the reason that you will all think of, if you have seen the old typefoundries’ famous

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Quousque Tandem copy (i.e., that Latin has few descenders and thus gives a remarkably even line). No, he told me that originally he had set up the dullest ‘wording’ that he could find (I dare say it was from Hansard), and yet he discovered that the man to whom he submitted it would start reading and making comments on the text. I made sonic remark on the mentality of Boards of Directors, but Mr. Cleland said, “No: you’re wrong; if the reader had not been practically forced to read—if he had not seen those words suddenly imbued with glamour and significance—then the layout would have been a failure. Setting it in Italian or Latin is only an easy way of saying ‘This is not the text as it will appear.’”

Let me start my specific conclusions with book typography, because that contains all the fundamentals, and then go on to a few points about advertising.

The book typographer has the job of erecting a window between the reader inside the room and that landscape which is the author’s words. He may put up a stained-glass window of marvelous beauty, but a failure as a window; that is, he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to he looked at, not through.

Or he may work in what I call transparent or invisible typography.

I have a book at home, of which I have no visual recollection whatever as far as its typography goes; when I think of it, all I see is the Three Musketeers and their comrades swaggering up and down the streets of Paris. The third type of window is one in which the glass is broken into relatively small leaded panes; and this corresponds to what is called “fine printing” today, in that you are at least conscious that there is a window there, and that someone has enjoyed building it. That is not objectionable, because of a very important fact which has to do with the psychology of the subconscious mind. This is that the mental eye focuses through type and

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not upon it. The type which, through any arbitrary warping of design or excess of “color,” gets in the way of the mental picture to be conveyed is a bad type. Our subconsciousness is always afraid of blunders (which illogical setting, tight spacing and too-wide unleaded lines can trick us into), of boredom, and of officiousness.

The running headline that keeps shouting at us, the line that looks like one long word, the capitals jammed together without hair-spaces—these mean subconscious squinting and loss of mental focus.

And if what I have said is true of book printing, even of the most exquisite limited editions, it is fifty times more obvious in advertising, where the one and only justification for the purchase of space is that you are conveying a message—that you are implanting a desire, straight into the mind of the reader. It is tragically easy to throw away half the reader interest of an advertisement by setting the simple and compelling argument in a face that is uncomfortably alien to the classic reasonableness of the book-face. Get attention as you will by your headline, and make any pretty type pictures you like if you are sure that the copy is useless as a means of selling goods; but if you are happy enough to have really good copy to work with, I beg you to remember that thousands of people pay hard-earned money for the privilege of reading quietly set book-pages, and that only your wildest ingenuity can stop people

“ Printing demands a humility of mind,

“

from reading a really interesting text.

for the lack of which many of the fine arts are even now floundering in self-conscious and maudlin experiments. There is nothing simple or dull in achieving the transparent page. Vulgar ostentation is twice as easy as discipline. When you realize that ugly typography never effaces itself, you will be able to capture beauty as the wise

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men capture happiness by aiming at something else. The ‘stunt typographer’ learns the fickleness of rich men who hate to read.

Not for them are long breaths held over serif and kern, they will not appreciate your splitting of hair-spaces. Nobody (save the other craftsmen) will appreciate half your skill. But you may spend endless years of happy experiment in devising that crystalline goblet which is worthy to hold the vintage of the human mind.

Published in Beatrice Warde: The Crystal Goblet—Sixteen Essays on Typography (Cleveland and New York World Publishing Co, 1956)

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Towards A Universal Type

Herbert Bayer

One glance at the specimen book of types issued by even an upto-date printing firm, reveals a collection of the most varied sorts of letters, which as a whole constitute a conglomeration of style of the worst kind. Arranged in groups and compared with other expressions of the periods from which they have descended, they remind us that: Today we do not build in gothic, but in our contemporary way.

No longer do we travel on horseback, but in cars, trains and planes.

We do not dress in crinolines nowadays, but in a more rational manner.

Every period has its own formal and cultural features, expressed in its contemporary habits of life, in its architecture and literature.

The same applies to language and writing. We recognize clearly enough that literary forms of past ages do not belong to the present times. A man would make himself ridiculous who insisted on talking today in the manner of the middle ages.

Later, we shall see that the type designs of tradition do not respond to the essential requirements of type suitable for use today. we look back upon a long line of development in type design, and we have no intention of criticizing the heritage which now oppresses us. But we have reached a stage when we must decide to break

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with the past. When we are confronted with a collection of traditional styles we ought to see that we can turn away from the antiquated forms of the middle ages with a clear conscience to the possibilities of designing a new kind of type more suitable to the present and what we can foresee of the future.

In the course of the centuries our language has changed. It has become shorter, sound-changes have taken place, new words have been coined, new concepts have been formed. Language itself needs complete reorganization—but this is a tremendous subject. We shall not enter upon it, but limit ourselves to consideration of type design.

Out of the conglomerate mass of type faces, some of which are illustrated, there has emerged, as a last phase, the form of classical roman type, with variations until we arrive at the simplified form without serifs, popularly known as “sans-serif” or “sans,” in England the most familiar type of this order is commonly known as “Gill Sans,” after the name of its designer, Eric Gill. Sans-serif type is the child of our period. In form it is in complete harmony with other visible forms and phenomena of modern life. We welcome it as our most modern type. We cannot set about inventing an entirely new form of type, as this would have to be parallel with a radical reorganization of the language. We must remain true to our basic letter forms, and try to develop them further. Classic roman type, the original form of all historical variations of type, must still be our starting point. All the variations of shape have been formed freely according to the style and the calligraphy of the type designer, and it is just this freedom which has been responsible for so many mistakes. Geometry, however, gives us the most exact forms. Albrecht Durer's endeavours to resolve both the roman and the German gothic type into their constructive basic elements, unfortunately

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were never carried beyond their experimental stage. The Bayer Type produced by the Berthold type foundry represents a practical attempt to give a modern expression to classical roman type by means of geometrical construction of form. A tremendous amount of reading is done today and there should be no difficulties put in the way of the reader. Some things have to be read from afar, and letters must be visible from considerable distances. It is not without reason that oculists use clear cut type faces when testing the state of the patient's eyesight.

Much has been written about the legibility of type. Oculists can offer no definite proofs, because their experiments are influenced by habits to which patients are accustomed. For example, it is found that old people with bad eyesight often read complicated gothic type more easily than clear roman type, because they are used to the former. But from research, however, it has been concluded that the more the individual letters resemble one another in shape, the less visible is the type. This conclusion may be wrong, as it would be easy to find illegible typefaces in which the individual letters differ very widely from one another, if that be the only consideration. And then where shall we look for harmony of form and the fundamental constructional form of our types? Other research has established that whole groups of letters—not single letters, butwords-are taken in by the eye at one glance. If we carried this conclusion to its logical end we should have optical word pictures (similar to chinese signs) and no type with separate letters. Personally, I believe in the following logical conception: the simpler the shape of the letter, the easier the type is to see, read, and learn. In classic times capital letters (the only letters in use) were drawn with a slate pencil and incised with a chisel. No doubt their form was intimately associated with these tools. Lower case developed in the

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early middle ages from the use of the pen, and therefore inherits the characteristics of handwriting. Later, both alphabets adapted themselves, and we observe in all types up to the present the characteristic basic element of the thin up-stroke and the thick down-stroke. These characteristics have preserved themselves up to this day. But do we need such a pretense of precedent at a time when 90 percent of all that is read is either written on a typewriter or printed on a printing press, when handwriting plays only a secondary role, and when type could be much simpler and more consistent in form?

Hence, I believe the requirements of a new alphabet are as follows: • Geometric foundation of each letter, resulting in a synthetic construction out of a few basic elements.

• Avoidance of all suggestion of a hand-written character, uniform thickness of all parts of the letter, and renunciation of all suggestions of up and down strokes.

• Simplification of form for the sake of legibility (the simpler the optical appearance the easier the comprehension).

• A basic form which will suffice for diverse applications so that the same character is adaptable for various functions: printing, typewriting, hand and stencil writing, etc.

These considerations will explain the attempt to design a new type. But why do we write and print with two alphabets? A large and a small sign are not necessary for one sound. We do not speak a capital "a" and a small "a".

We need a one-letter type alphabet. It gives us exactly the same result as the mixed type of capitals and lower-case letters, and at the same time is less of a burden to school children, students, professional and business men. It can be written considerably

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quickly, especially on the typewriter, where a shift key would be unnecessary. Typewriting would therefore be more easily learned.

Typewriters would be cheaper because of simpler construction.

Typesetting would be cheaper, type cases smaller; printing establishments would save space. Writing and addressing done in offices would be much cheaper. These facts apply with special force in the english language, in which the use of capital letters occurs so infrequently. It seems incomprehensible why such a huge amount of apparatus should be necessary for such little use of capitals. It is considered necessary to emphasize the beginnings of sentences, this could be done by heavy type or wider spacing. Proper names could also be shown in another way, and for the “I� a uniform sign would have to be created. Pursuing this thought to its logical conclusion we perceive that the sound of the language ought to be given a systematic optical shape. In order to aim at a simplified type, as against that used today, syllables that frequently recur, and combined sounds (diphthongs, etc. should be given new letter signs).

THE CAPITAL LETTERS OF ANCIENT TIMES ARE HARDLY LEGIBLE WHEN THEY ARE FORMED INTO SENTENCES. THEY CANNOT, THEREFORE, BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION. There remains only the small letters of our present-day lower case alphabet. This must be the foundation of our one-letter alphabet. And is not a sentence in a one-letter alphabet, which intrinsically possesses a formally compact construction, more harmonious, logically, than a sentence consisting of two alphabets, which completely differ from each other in shape and size?

First published in PM 4, no. 2 (December-January 1939-1940).

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Grid And Design Philosophy Josef MĂźller-Brockmann

The use of the grid as an ordering system is the expression of a certain mental attitude inasmuch as it shows that the designer conceives his work in terms that are constructive and oriented to the future.

This is the expression of a professional ethos: the designer’s work should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.

His work should thus be a contribution to general culture and itself form part of it.

Constructivist design that is capable of analysis and reproduction can influence and enhance the taste of a society and the way it conceives forms and colors. Design that is objective, committed to the common weal, well composed, of refined constitutes the basis of democratic behavior. Constructivist design means the conversion of design laws into practical solutions. Work done systematically and in accordance with strict formal principles makes those demands for directness, intelligibility, and the integration of all factors that are also vital in sociopolitical life.

Working with the grid system means submittingn to laws of univeral validity.

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The use of a grid system implies the will to systematize, to clarify the will to penetrate to the essentials, to concentrate the will cultivate objectivity instead of subjectivity, the will to rationalize that creative and technical production processes the will to integrate elements of color, form, and material the will to achieve architectural dominion over surface and space the will to adopt a positive, forwardlooking attitude the recognition of the importance of education and the effect of work devised in a constructive and creative spirit.

Every visual creative work is a manifestation of the character of the designer. It is a reflection of his knowledge, his ability, and his mentality.

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Publication Š 2017 ECUAD All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher.

Editing & Design: June Tang Photography / images: p. 2, 12-13

https://pmcinto5.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/jan-tschichold-typography-titan/

p. 3, 8

http://www.jantschichold.com/post/128630035769/jan-tschichold-representing-fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl

p. 4-5

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~aniciani/web_14/project2/life.html

p. 6

http://pressatcc.blogspot.ca/2011/03/profile-of-typographer-jan-tschichold.html

p. 7

https://jamesbrook.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/jan-tschichold/

p. 9

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2008/dec/05/design

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http://www.hypocritedesign.com/jan-tschichold/

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https://www.davidairey.com/graphic-icons-jan-tschichold/

p. 14

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eyemagazine/8201964995

p. 22, 23

https://mahbubahmedtheory.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/design-heroesw-t-f-what-the-font/

p. 24, 25

https://www.bauhaus100.de/de/damals/koepfe/meister/herbert-bayer/

p. 26, 27

https://www.moma.org/artists/399

p. 28

http://indexgrafik.fr/josef-muller-brockmann/

p. 29

http://www.internationalposter.com/gallery-exhibitions/mid-century-modern.aspx

p. 30

http://ilovetypography.com/2013/01/12/a-firm-turn-toward-the-objectivejosef-muller-brockmann-1948-1981/

p. 31

http://laurasprauer.com/blog/the-impact-of-swiss-design/ Printed in Canada by The Printing House.