Jan Tschichold

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J d l o h c i h c s T an

Life in calligraphy, typography, design, work, and legacy 1 Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold, ca. 1926 (photo Kurt Schwitters).

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Jan Tschichold

Chidalu Motanya Fall 2012 Intro to Typography

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table of Contents: I: Early Life II: Days of Bauhaus III: The New Typography IV: Sabon V: Penguin Years

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Graphische Werbekunst (Graphic Advertising Art), exhibition poster, 1927, offset litograph.

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early life On April 2nd, 1902 in Leipzig, Germany, Tschichold was originally born as Johannes Tzschichhold, the son of Franz Tzschichhold and Maria Zapff. He was introduced to design by his father, who was a signwriter; because Tschichold’s father was a signwriter, he began to study calligraphy at a young age, which set him apart from other typographers at the time. He followed classes in calligraphy, wood engraving, etching, and book binding under the watch of two advisors; Walter Tiemann from 1919 to 1921, and Hermann Delitsch from 1921 to 1923 at the Leipzig Staatliche Akademie für graphische Künste und Buchgewerbe which translates to “Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Production (Jan Tschichold, 9). After Tschichold completed his formal training, he was set to work as traditional calligrapher, designing advertisements for the Leipzig trade fairs as well as teaching evening classes at the Leipzig Academy.

In 1923, Tschichold began working as freelance typographic designer and calligrapher for the printer Fischer & Wittig, and the publisher Insel-Verlag. After the Russian revolution ended, Tschichold saw the revolution as an opportunity for a new beginning; by showing his interest in Russian design, he openly changed his name to Iwan (Ivan) Tschichold.

Also during this time period, Tschichold visited the first Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar. He was not a student or teacher at Bauhaus, but he was exposed to typography, modern art movements, and constructivism. (Jan Tschichold, 31).

Advertising brochure for the Akademischer Verlag Dr. Fritz Wedekind & Co., designed by Jan Tschichold, 1929, photo by Max Burchartz.

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“today, good taste is often erroneously rejected as old fashioned because the ordinary man, seeking approval of his so-called personality, prefers to follow the dictates of his own peculiar style rather than submit to any objective criterion of taste.”

—JAN TSCHICHOLD Jan Tschichold, hand lettered advertisement for the Leipzig Trade Fair, 1922. Symmetry and historical letterforms characterize Tschichold’s youthful work.

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days of bauhaus The Bauhaus was the first modern model of an art school, but students were encouraged to arrive at their own creative solutions and discover new approaches made possible by new technology (Jan Tschichold, 31). Before moving to Dessau, the Bauhaus was located in Weimar from 1919 to 1925; The Bauhaus years in Weimar were intensely visionary and drew inspiration from expressionism (Meggs, 310).

At the Bauhaus, no distinction was made between fine and applied art. Johannes Itten initially established the Bauhaus education; his goals were to “release each student’s creative abilities, to develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials, and to teach the fundamental principles of design underlying all visual art” (Meggs, 311). In 1919, Lyonel Feininger became informed about De Stijl, and initiated the movement in to the Bauhaus community; both the Bauhaus and De Stijl had similar aims.

In August 1923, Tschichold visited the Bauhaus in Weimar; he was then introduced to various artists, with a range from Gropius

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and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Itten’s replacement as head of the preliminary course was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; he was a Hungarian experimenter who studied law before turning to art which included painting, photography, film, sculpture, and graphic design. Through his experiments, new material such as photomontage, the photogram, and kinetic motion were established in his mist. The Bauhaus was a major part in Tschichold’s inspiration; he began to incorporate his own work with the design concepts of the Bauhaus, the Russian constructivists, and the ideas of the De Stijl movement (Jan Tschichold, 31). Tschichold soon began a great extent of communication with many pivotal figures of the time including, Max Bill, Herbert Bayer, Josef Albers, and El Lissitsky.

“Tschichold became the spokesman for what would become known as The New Typography”

After the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition, Tschichold was invited to serve as a guest editor for the October 1925 issue of the printing trade journal Typographische Mitteilungen; he was the designer of the twenty four page special issue titled elementare typographie. The issue of Typographische Mitteilungen was a Bauhaus special edition and was devoted to Die neue Typografie (The New Typography) which was a term that Tschichold began to use and others picked up as well. “Printed in red and black, the Sonderheft helped to clarify, demonstrate, and display the principles of the New Typography for professional printers, typesetters, and typographers. In addition to Tschichold’s own typography, it presented work by the avant-garde designers Max Burchartz, Johannes Molzahn…these images were accompanied by Tschichold’s own articulate comments and observations” (Jan Tschichold, 36). Elementare typographie left an impression and conveyed much enthusiasm and controversy among a large audience, given that most German typography was symmetrical at the time. At the young age of twenty three, Tschichold became the spokesman for what would become known as the New Typography.

Much of the graphic design during the first decades of the century occurred as part of the modern art movements and at the Bauhaus, but these explorations toward a new approach to graphic design were often seen and understood only by a limited audience outside the mainstream society (Meggs, 314).

Herbert Bayer, exhibition poster, 1926.

Joost Schmidt’s poster for this exhibition; combines geometric and machine forms reflecting the reorientation occurring at the Bauhaus.

Cover of elementare typographie

by Jan Tschichold, special insert for Typographische Mitteilungen, 1925.

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the new typography

“Perfect typography is certainly the most elusive of all arts.

Sculpture in stone alone comes near it in obstinacy.”

— JAN TSCHICHOLD

Die neue typographie invitation by Jan Tschichold, 1927.

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“Exhibition of New Religious Art,”poster, 1921, lithograph, “Johannes Tzschichold”.

Tschichold was the one person who was able to apply new design approaches to everyday design problems and explain them to a wide audience of printer’s, typesetters, and designers.

Tschichold sought to find new asymmetrical typography to express his work; his objective was functional design by the most straight forward means (Meggs, 315). Tschichold’s name became immediately known throughout German speaking Europe; this is because the magazine was distributed 20,000 to printers and typographers.

Tschichold’s special issue made a major impact in the field of advertising design. At the Bauhaus, a department of printing and advertising began in 1925; two years later, former student Herbert Bayer became head of the Bauhaus. March 10th, 1927, Bayer wrote to Tschichold: “With the beginning of the new semester I will be teaching a proper advertising class; typography will be dealt with as a separate subject” (Jan Tschichold, 40). Moholy-Nagy was the first designers to use the term “new typography” in 1923 at the Bauhaus exhibition catalog; Die neue Typographie was the title of Moholy-Nagy’s essay, where empha-

sized the use of contrast and clarity of viewpoints that he and Tschichold held in common.

In return, Tschichold chose Die neue Typographie as the title for his first book; the book was published in the spring of 1928. “This groundbreaking book remains one of the most important documents of modernist graphic design. Here Tschichold further refined, codified, and articulated the design concepts of the New Typography for the printing trade and vigorously advocated the new ideas (Jan Tschichold, 40). Along with all of Tschichold’s s success, Ruari McLean began an English translation and revision of Die neue Typographie in 1967; an English edition was also published by the University of California Press in 1995.

The New Typography is distinguished from the old by the fact that its first objective is to develop its visible form out of the functions of the text.

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jan Tschichold’s Typography Objectives:

1. The purpose of the New Typography is functionality.

2. The purpose of any typography is communication (the means of

which are visualized). This communication has to appear in the shortest, simplest, and most compelling form.

3. For typography to serve social purposes, the inner form of the

material employed must arrange the content whereas the outer form must establish a relationship between the different typographic means.

4. Inner organization means using a few basic constituents as possi-

ble: typefaces, numbers signs, lines from the type cases, and the typesetter. In the modern world focused on optics, the precise picture, i.e. photography, must be considered as a basic constituent of the New Typography.

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The Woman Without a name, Part II, film poster, 1927, Jan Tschichold.

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sabon Cover and pages from type specimen of Sabon, 1967. Design

by Jan Tschichold, 22 x 21 cm, issued by Linotype, Bad Hombrurg.

As Tschichold grew up, he began to disagree with New Typography, and created Sabon.

Sabon typeface was originally designed in 1967.

The typeface design was based on a version of Garamond designed by Jacob Sabon and Conrad Berner. The typeface was commissioned by a group of German printers, who wanted a good text face that would appear the same on all three metal type mechanisms used at the time, and set foundry type, the Linotype Machine, and the Monotype Machine. A distinguishing feature of the typeface was that the roman, italic, and bold weights all occupied the same width when typeset. The typeface consists of Roman, Small Caps & Oldstyle Figures, Italic,

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Italic Oldstyle Figures, Bold, Bold Oldstyle Figures, Bold Italic, and Bold Italic Oldstyle Figures.

An early first use of Sabon was the setting of the Washburn College Bible in 1973 by the American graphic designer Bradbury Alphabet.

All books of the King James biblical text were set by hand in a process called thought–unit typography, where Thompson broke the lines at their spoken syntactical breaks. Sabon was also used as the typeface in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (United States), as well as all of the church’s secondary liturgical texts; such as the Book of Occasional Services and Lesser Feasts and Fasts.

Sabon was also used in the 2000’s as the

official logo typeface of Stanford University until 2012. Örebro University, alomg with the typeface Trade Gothic., use Sabon as well.

Magazines such as Vogue and Esquire use a slightly modified version of Sabon for headlines.

Jean-Francois Porchez designed the revival of Sabon known as Sabon Next. Sabon Next is based upon Tschichold’s 1967 Sabon design for the Stempel foundry and Porchez’ study of original Garamond models. The family consists of 6 weights, without Greek and Cyrillic support.

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Sabon Sabon Bold

ABCDEFGHIJLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopq rstuvwxzy 12345678910

Sabon Roman

ABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQR STUVWXYZ abcdefghijklm noprstuvwxyz 12345678910 16 Jan Tschichold

Sabon Italic

ABCDEFGHIJKL MNOPQRSTUV WXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqr stuvwxyz 12345678910

Garamond Garamond Italic

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO PQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 Garamond Regular !@#$%^&*() ABCDEFGHIJK LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmopq rstuvwxyz 1234567890 !@#$%^&*() Garamond Bold ABCDEFGHIJKL MOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 !@#$%^&*() 17 Jan Tschichold

penguin years

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In the years following World War II, book publishers such as Penguin looked for the best typographic talent in Europe and offered designers artistic freedom to develop a new set of typographic rules and standards for the mass production of books. Allen Lane hired Tschichold in March 1947, to redesign their publication; Lane would have been surprised, had he known that Tschichold would set the standard for all book designs for years to come in Britain.

Tschichold’s demand for consistency and superior design and his successful management of the varied departments involved in the production process brought about significant change within the mass market publishing industry. Most importantly, Tschichold helped to bring forth a resurgence of classical typography and book design.

By the time Tschichold arrived at Penguin in March 1946, paperbacks became a popular form of mass media. Penguin Books in particular provided the general public with a wide range of affordable literature. However, Penguin’s designs fell far short of their literary reputation as a result of the decline in the quantity and quality of paper during the war years. Penguin was capable of returning to pre war standards of design and book production. Before arriving at Penguin, Tschichold requested samples of Penguin books and soon realized that composition rules and standards were virtually nonexistent at the company, as the production department depended on sample pages and different sets of house rules supplied by Penguin’s various printers. In addition, Old Style No. 2, Gill Sans, and Times New Roman were the only fonts being utilized throughout all the series.

Tschichold’s strategy to help educate employees unfamiliar with the design process was to provide explanatory notes and criticisms and circulated them to the editorial and production staff.

Tschichold decided to set a practical look for Penguin that would suit a large number of balance, consistency, and legibility. In his view, adherence to the tenets of classic typography legibility was integral to a book’s function.

Tschichold’s final revision of the Penguin cover, in 1949, was to modify the Penguin trademark. He improved the letter spacing and reduced its overall size for improved proportion. He decreased the weight of the orange rule between the title and author’s name and also introduced two hairline rules running parallel along the orange horizontal top and bottom panels. These final revisions firmly established format, which unified the Penguin series.

Penguin logos, 1947. Tschichold redrew the Penguin symbol which was originally designed by Edward Young in 1935, as well as the Pelican and Puffin.

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Jan Tschichold spent a life learning and exploring and left us with much to do the same.

From strongly advocating the beauty of sans serif fonts and clean, organized design 20 years before it took off, to strengthening the design of Penguin books to turn them into the something special that they are today. After finishing off working with Penguin, he returned to Switzerland and continued the life the craftsman deserved. He wrote, worked, and gave talks around the world and won awards and recognitions. From 1955 until his retirement in 1967, he took commissions as a typographer for Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. In 1967, Tschichold visited the United States of America.

Until Tschichold’s death at Berzona near Locarno in August 1974, Tschichold continued to work as a designer and writer in Switzerland.

In his ground breaking work as the leading propagandist of the New Typography his contributions to modernist graphic design are both lasting and manifold; in later years he played an important role in a carefully subtle revival of traditional typography. His wife died in 1986 in the vicinity of Locarno, but not before their son was able to give the parents two grandchildren.

Jan Tschichold revolutionized the field of graphic design with his attention to detail, bold asymmetrical compositions, and use of sans serif type. He left his mark in the world of graphic design through his inspiration from the Bauhaus which resulted in both his design work, a series of articles and books, including Die neue Typographie. In present day, Tschichold remains one the best graphic designers, and important figures in history. His accomplishments changed the way designers viewed their work; every graphic designer should know his work and strive to be just as ambitious as Jan Tschichold.

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When William Came. Penguin Books, no. 331, first published March 1941. Penguin cover as Tschichold found it upon his arrival in 1947.

Hugh Massingham, The Harp and the Oak, cover design by Jan Tschichold. Penguin Books, no.

622, September 1948.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, cover designs by Jan Tschichold.

Penguin no. 746, January 1950.

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bibliography

Jong, Cees, Alston Purvis, Martijn Coultre, Richard Doubleday, and Hans Reichardt.

Jan Tschichold: Master Typographer, His Life, Work & Legacy. United Kingdon: Thames & Hudson, 2008. 10-49. Print.

Meggs, Philip, and Alston Purvis.

Meggs’ History of Graphic Design.

Fourth. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006. 315-323. Print.

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colophon

Chidalu Motanya Fall 2012 Introduction to Typography Saddle Stitch HP Color Laserjet CP5525 Matte Pages American University 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20016 FONTS: Sabon Roman Sabon Small Caps & Oldstyle Figures Sabon Italic Sabon Bold

Jan Tschichold, ca. 1962 (photo Frank Bolliger).

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