Tp | A Collective about 'Ideal' Type

Tp A Collective about ‘Ideal’ Type

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Contents

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4 10 16 24

Grid and Philosophy

by Josef Müller-brockman, 1981

Designing Programmes

by Karl Gerstner, 1964

Towards a Universal Type

by Herbert Bayer, 1935

The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

by Beatrice Warde, 1932

Grid and Design Philosophy

Josef Müller-brockman | 1981 4

Grid and Design Philosophy

Josef Müller-Brockman divided and ordered graphic design into the grid of Swiss typography. He took design elements that were subjective, irrational, and chaotic and brought them under tight, measured control. He dealt deep into form and content, spending his life in Zurich bearing down his work to the essentials necessary for what he considered an objective— even timeless—method of communication. They grid was key to his pursuit.

As Müller-Brockman’s notes in the essay at right, “working within the grid system means submitting to laws of universal validity.” He popularized the grid while spreading the principles of Swiss typography internationally through graphic design, lectures, and publications. In 1958 he founded New Graphic, and influential trilingual magazine promoting Swiss typography. He embodied the expansive precision of this movement. When asked about David Carson, postmodern designer and surfer, in 1996, Müller-Brockman replied, “I don’t surf, I dive.”1 His intense quest to achieve a universal system of communication calls to contemporary designers seeking ideal global forms for the world of new media.

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See Kerry William Purcell, Josef Müller-Brockman (New York: Phaidon Press, 2006), 277.

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Musica Viva. The “musica viva” poster is built up on a grid 4.5 fields wide and 4 fields deep. The two words “musica viva” are arranged in a cross, the letters of “musica” being set at irregular intervals so that a rhythm is produced. The lines of the program in small type align with the letters of “musica viva.” In this way an impression is created of a severe but elegant architecture. Format: 128 X 90.5 cm, upright. Colors: bluegreen-white.

Illustration and caption from Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockman.

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Grid and Design Philosophy

The use of the grid as an ordering system

Working with the grid system just means

is the expression of a certain mental

submitting to laws of universal validity.

attitude inasmuch as it shows that the designer conceives his work in terms that

The use of a grid system implies the

are constructive and oriented to the future.

will to systematize, to clarify There will to penetrate to the

This is the expression of a professional

essentials, to concentrate

ethos: the designer’s work should have the clearly intelligible, objective,

The will cultivate objectivity instead

functional, and aesthetic quality of

of subjectivity,

mathematical thinking.

The will to rationalize that creative and His work should thus be a contribution to

technical production processes

general culture and itself form part of it.

The will to integrate elements of color,

“Constructivist design means the conversion of design laws into practical solutions.”

form, and material The will to achieve architectural dominion over surface and space I

Constructivist design that is capable of analysis and reproduction can influence

The will to adopt a positive, forward-

and enhance the taste of a society and

looking attitude

the way it conceives forms and colors.

Design that is objective, committed to

The recognition of the importance

the common weal, well composed, of

of education and the effect of work

refined constitutes the basis of democratic

devised in a constructive and

behavior. Constructivist design means the

creative spirit.

conversion of design laws into practical solutions. Work done systematically and

Every visual creative work is a

in accordance with strict formal principles

manifestation of the character of the

makes those demands for directness,

designer. It is a reflection of his knowledge,

intelligibility, and the integration of all

his ability, and his mentality.

factors that are also vital in sociopolitical life.

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Designing Programmes

Karl Gerstner | 1964 8

Design Programmes

Karl Gerstner created a rational, systematic approach to graphic design.

As a boy and Basel this pioneer of Swiss typography longed to be a chemist. Unable to afford the extensive training, he turned instead to the visual synthesis of graphic design. Gerstner merged art with science. He developed a comprehensive system capable of generating a broad range of design solutions, and he connected this system to be evolving field of computer programming. Gerstner detailed his approach in Designing Programmes, a book that became a 1960s cult classic. For three decades he run GGK, the advertising agency he founded with Markus Kutter in 1959.

He’s barely work with systems-oriented design reveals, in his words, “How much computers change’s—or can change—not only the procedure of the work but the work itself.”1

Manfred Kröplien, “Status Quo at 66” in Karl Gerstner, Review of 5 x 10 Years of Graphic Design etc.

(Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2001), 242.

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Karl Gerstner

Programme as Logic

The criteria are rough. As the work

Instead of solutions for problems,

proceeds, of course, they are to be

programmes for solutions—this subtitle can

refined as desired. The components are

also be understood in these terms: for no

to be made into parameters and new

problem (so to speak) is there an absolute

components are to be specified, etc.

solution. Reason: the possibilities cannot

Moreover, they are not only rough, they are

be delimited absolutely. There is always a

also not self-contained. The component

group of solutions, one of which is the best

“something else” is the parcel in which the

under certain conditions.

leftovers are packed if the parameter does not breakdown neatly. The designations

To describe the problem is part of the

are imprecise in some cases. There are

solution. This implies: not to make creative

many imperfections. But it is precisely

decisions as prompted by feeling but by

in drawing up the scheme, in striving

intellectual criteria. The more exact and

for perfection, that the work really lies.

complete these criteria are, the more

The work is not diminished; it is merely

creative the work becomes. The creative

transferred to another plane.

process is to be reduced to an act of selection. Designing means: to pick out

The inadequacy of this box is my own and

determining elements combine them.

not inherent in the method. Even so: it

Seeing in these terms, designing calls for

contains thousands of solutions that—

method. The most suitable I know is that

as could be shown by checking an

one Fritz Zwicky has developed, although

example— are arrived at by the blind

actually his is intended for scientists rather

concatenation of components. It is a kind of

than designers. (Die morphologische

designing automatic.

Forschung, 1953, Kommissionsverlag, Winterthur.) I have produced the diagram below in accordance with his instructions and, following his terminology, I have called it “the morphological box of the typogram.” Is the criteria—the parameters on the left, the relative components on the right—following which marks and signs are to be designed from letters.

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Design Programmes

The morphological box of the typogram. Karl Gerstner created this diagram as a typographic adaption from a Swiss Astronomer, Fritz Zwicky. The graph breaks down certain expressive characteristics of typography by row.

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Five creative solution examples. These are five provided examples that could be broken down or blindly generated using Karl Gerstners’ diagram, “the morphilogical box of the typogram”.

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Design Programmes

Solutions from the Programme

an assessable value (apart from black

(Not all the solutions were found with the

always being dark). But if letters of varying

aid of the morphological box. But all those

degrees of darkness are combined (as

phones can be assigned to a place in it

there) the parameter of shade may be the

and analyzed.)

point at which the solution crystallizes out.

If all the components contained in the

Parameters as points of crystallization: I will

trademark intermöbel are added, we

illustrate photos in the section “Expression”

obtain the following chain:

by the following examples:

a 11. (word) – 21. (sans-serif) –

“Reading direction” determines the

33. (composed)

expression of the typograms Krupp and National Zeitung. In both instances the

b 14. (shades combined, viz. light and

component d 15 (combined) forms the

dark) – 12. (achromatic)

basis. In Krupp d 11 (from left to right) is combined with d 14 (otherwise, i.e., from

c 12. (size immaterial, therefore

right to left).

medium) – 22. (proportion usual) – 33. (fat) – 41. (roman)

In the case of National Zeitung the components are d 12 and 13.

d 11. (from left to right) - 22. (normal spacing) – 31. (form unmodified) – 43.

“Spacing,” once again combined in the

(something replaced, viz., the face of

component, is determining in Braun

the letter r by superimposition of the

Electric and Autokredit A.G.

two parts of the word).

Not all the components are of equal importance; only two are actually decisive: b 14 + d 43.

The importance of “combined” is shown in example b 14: the components lightmedium-dark are not very expressive in themselves because they do not represent

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Karl Gerstner

Programme as Grid

Basic unit is 10 points; the size of the basic

Is the grid programme? Let me put it more

typeface including the lead. The text

specifically: if the grid is considered as

and picture area are divided at the same

a promotional regulator, a system, it is a

time into one, two, three, four, five, and

programme par excellence. Squared paper

six columns. There are 58 units along the

is a (arithmetic) grid, but not programme.

whole width. This number is a logical one

Unlike, say, the (geometric) module of Le

when there are always two units between

Corbusier, which can, of course, be used as

the columns. That is: it divides in every case

a grid but is primarily a programme. Albert

without a remainder: with two columns and

Einstein said of the module: “is the scale

58 units are composed of 2 x 28 + 2 (space

of proportions that makes the bad difficult

between columns); with 3 columns 3 x 18

and a good easy.” That is a programmatic

+ 2 x 2; with 4 columns 4 x 13 + 3 x 2; with 5

statement of what I take to be the aim of

columns 5 x 10 + 4 x 2; with6 columns 6 x 8

“Designing Programmes.”

+ 5 x 2 10-point units.

“The difficulty is: to find a balance, the maximum of conformity to a rule with the maximum freedom.”

The grid looks complicated to anyone not knowing the key. For the initiate it is easy to use and (almost) inexhaustible as a programme.

The typographic grid is a proportional regulator for composition, tables, pictures, etc. it is a formal programme to accommodate x unknown items. The difficulty is: to find a balance, the maximum of conformity to a rule with the maximum of freedom. Or: the maximum of constants with the greatest possible variability.

In our agency we have evolved the “mobile grid.” An example is the arrangement below: the grid for the periodical Capital.

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Design Programmes

Example of the mobile grid. This example is a grid that is divided in six different ways at the same time. It divides into one, two three, four, five, and six columns.

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Towards a Universal Type

Herbert Bayer | 1935 16

Towards a Universal Type

Beginning in the 1920s, German type reformers sought ways of replacing the national alphabet—the spiky Blackletter—with simplified gothic letters.

A leading advocate was Austrian-born Herbert Bayer (1900–1985), who was educated at the Bauhaus in Weimar and later taught at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where, from 1925 to 1928, he was director of the school’s department of typography and advertising. During this time, his interests-and the department’s emphasis-shifted from lithography and hand-printing to more mechanical processes and more inventive typographic exploration. A devout modernist who was profoundly influenced by the De Stijl movement (1917–1932), Bayer railed against the redundancy of serifs and capital letters, arguing instead for the efficiency of lowercase and the economy of a sansserif alphabet. His universal alphabet of 1925–1927 emphatically illuminates this argument. In this article, published seven years after the Bauhaus was closed, Bayer—who was at this time living in Nazi Germany—explains the practical conveniences of a typographic system that mirrors the functional requirements of modern life. Here, a renunciation of thick-to-thin strokes is contrasted by a celebration of the purity of geometric form.

—Jessica Helfland

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Herbert Bayer

One glance at the specimen book of types

development in type design, and we have

issued by even an up-to-date printing firm,

no intention of criticizing the heritage which

reveals a collection of the most varied sorts

now oppresses us. but we have reached a

of letters, which as a whole constitute a

stage when we must decide to break with

conglomeration of style of the worst kind.

the past. when we are confronted with a

arranged in groups and compared with

collection of traditional styles we ought

other expressions of the periods from

to see that we can turn away from the

which they have descended, they remind

antiquated forms of the middle ages with

us that:

a clear conscience to the possibilities of designing a new kind of type more suitable

today we do not build in gothic, but in

to the present and what we can foresee of

our contemporary way.

the future.

no longer do we travel on horseback,

in the course of the centuries our language

but in cars, train and planes.

has changed. it has become shorter, sound-changes have taken place, new

we do not dress in crinolines

words have been coined, new concepts

nowadays, but in a more

have been formed. language itself needs

rational manner.

complete reorganization-but this is a tremendous subject. we shall not enter

every period has its own formal and

upon it, but limit ourselves to consideration

cultural features, expressed in its

of type-design.

contemporary habits of life, in its architecture and literature. the same

out of the conglomerate mass of type

applies to language and writing. we

faces, some of which are illustrated, there

recognize clearly enough that literary

has emerged, as a last phase, the form of

forms of past ages do not belong to the

classical roman type, with variations until

present times. a man would make himself

we arrive at the simplified form without

ridiculous who insisted on talking today in

serifs, popularly known as “sans-serif” or

the manner of the middle ages.

“sans,” in england the most familiar type

later, we shall see that the type designs of

of this order is commonly known as “gill

tradition do not respond to the essential

sans,” after the name of its designer, eric

requirements of type suitable for use

gill. sans-serif type is the child of our

today. we look back upon a long line of

period. in form it is in complete harmony

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Towards a Universal Type

Universal alphabet and anatomy. The first image displays the alphabet Herbert Bayer created, expressing his argument for the efficiency of the lower case sans-serif alphabet. The second image displays a general anatomy of this alphabet.

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Herbert Bayer

with other visible forms and phenomena

much has been written about the legibility

of modern life. we welcome it as our

of type. oculists can offer no definite

most modern type. we cannot set about

proofs, because their experiments are

inventing an entirely new form of type, as

influenced by habits to which patients

this would have to be parallel with a radical

“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.”

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

are accustomed. for example, it is found

exact forms. albrecht durer’s endeavours

that old people with bad eyesight often

to resolve both the roman and the german

read complicated gothic type more easily

gothic type into their constructive basic

than clear roman type, because they are

elements, unfortunately were never carried

used to the former. but from research,

beyond their experimental stage. the

however, it has been concluded that the

bayer-type produced by the berthold type

more the individual letters resemble one

foundry represents a practical attempt

another in shape, the less visible is the

to give a modern expression to classical

type. this conclusion may be wrong, as it

roman type by means of geometrical

would be easy to find illegible type-faces

construction of form. a tremendous

in which the individual letters differ very

amount of reading is done today and there

widely from one another, if that be the

should be no difficulties put in the way of

only consideration. and then where shall

the reader. some things have to be read

we look for harmony of form and the

from afar, and letters must be visible from

fundamental constructional form of our

considerable distances. it is not without

types? other research has established that

reason that oculists use clear cut type

whole groups of letters-not single letters,

faces when testing the state of the

but words-are taken in by the eye at one

patient’s eyesight.

glance. if we carried this conclusion to its

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Towards a Universal Type parts of the letter, and renunciation

logical end we should have optical word

of all suggestions of up and down

pictures (similar to chinese signs) and no

strokes. simplification of form for

type with separate letters. personally, i

the sake of legibility (the simpler the

believe in the following logical conception:

optical appearance the easier the

the simpler the shape of the letter, the

comprehension).

easier the type is to see, read, and learn. in classic times capital letters (the only letters in use) were drawn with a slate

a basic form which will suffice for

pencil and incised with a chisel. no doubt

diverse applications so that the same

their form was intimately associated with

character is adaptable for various

these tools. lower case developed in the

functions: printing, typewriting, hand

early middle ages from the use of the pen,

and stencil writing, etc.

and therefore inherits the characteristics of handwriting. later, both alphabets adapted

these considerations will explain the

themselves, and we observe in all types

attempt to design a new type. but why do

up to the present the characteristic basic

we write and print with two alphabets? a

element of the thin up-stroke and the thick

large and a small sign are not necessary

down-stroke. these characteristics have

for one sound. we do not speak a capital a

preserved themselves up to this day. but

and a small a.

do we need such a pretense of precedent at a time when 90 percent of all that is read

we need a one-letter type alphabet. it

is either written on a typewriter or printed

gives us exactly the same result as the

on a printing press, when handwriting

mixed type of capitals and lower-case

plays only a secondary role, and when

letters, and at the same time is less of

type could be much simpler and more

a burden to school children, students,

consistent in form? hence, i believe

professional and business men. it can

the requirements of a new alphabet are

be written considerably more quickly,

as follows:

especially on the typewriter, where a shift key would be unnecessary. typewriting

geometric foundation of each letter,

would therefore be more easily learned.

resulting in a synthetic construction

typewriters would be cheaper because of

out of a few basic e1clnents. avoidance

simpler construction. typesetting would

of all suggestion of a hand-written

be cheaper, type cases smaller; printing

character, uniform thickness of all

establishments would save space. writing

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Herbert Bayer and addressing done in offices would be

alphabets, which completely differ from

much cheaper. these facts apply with

each other in shape and size?

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. if 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

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Towards a Universal Type

50 Jahre Bauhaus. Herbert Bayer produced this work for the traveling exhibition ‘50 Jahre Bauhaus’, incoorperating elements of his Universal alphabet.

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The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

Beatrice Warde | 1932 24

The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

Prior to the turn of the century, practitioners often argued over the virtues of personal style versus neutrality, which was the underlying topic of a lecture given by Beatrice Warde (1900–1969) to the Society of Typographic Designers in London (later published as an essay). Warde, who used the pen name Paul Beaujon, was a respected type historian and critic of the graphic arts industry. In 1927, on the strength Beaujon’s writing in the Fleuron, she was appointed editor of the Monotype Recorder, published in England by the Lanstone Monotype Company. “The Crystal Goblet” is Warde’s bestknown (and most reprinted) essay on the clarity of type and design. In the introduction to her book of collected writing, The Crystal Goblet, she asserts that the essay contains ideas that must be “said over again in other terms to many…people who in the nature of their work have to deal with the putting of printed words on paper—and who, for one reason or another, are in danger of becoming as fascinated by the intricacies of its techniques as birds are supposed to be by the eye of a serpent.”

—Steven Heller

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Beatrice Warde

Imagine that you have before you a flagon

bowl, because the connoisseur judges

of wine. You may choose your own favorite

wine partly by its color and is impatient of

vintage for this imaginary demonstration,

anything that alters it. There are a thousand

so that it be a deep shimmering crimson

mannerisms in typography that are as

in color. You have two goblets before

impudent and arbitrary as putting port in

you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the

tumblers of red or green glass! When a

most exquisite patterns. The other is

goblet has a base that looks too small for

of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble,

security, it does not matter how cleverly it

and as transparent. Pour and drink; and

is weighted; you feel nervous lest it should

according to your choice of goblet. I shall

tip over. There are ways of setting lines of

know whether or not you are a connoisseur

type which may work well enough, and yet

of wine. For if you have no feelings about

keep the reader subconsciously worried

wine one way or the other, you will want

by the fear of ‘doubling’ lines, reading three

the sensation of drinking the stuff out of

words as one, and so forth.

a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of

Now the man who first chose glass instead

that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine

of clay or metal to hold his wine was a

vintages, you will choose the crystal,

‘modernist’ in the sense in which I am

because everything about it is calculated

going to use that term. That is, the first

to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful

thing he asked of this particular object was

thing which it was meant to contain.

not ‘How should it look?’ but ‘What must it do?’ and to that extent all good typography

Bear with me in this long-winded and

is modernist.

fragrant metaphor; for you will find that almost all the virtues of the perfect

Wine is so strange and potent a thing

wineglass have a parallel in typography.

that it has been used in the central ritual

There is the long, thin stem that obviates

of religion in one place and time, and

fingerprints on the bowl. Why? Because

attacked by a virago with a hatchet in

no cloud must come between your eyes

another. There is only one thing in the

arid the fiery heart of the liquid. Are not the

world that is capable of stirring and altering

margins on book pages similarly meant

men’s minds to the same extent, and that

to obviate the necessity of fingering the

is the coherent expression of thought.

type page? Again: the glass is colorless

That is man’s chief miracle, unique to

or at the most only faintly tinged in the

man. There is no ‘explanation’ whatever of

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The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

Decorated wine glass. This illustration visually represents Beatrice Warde’s metaphor, that the more decorated and distracting a wine glass is, the more distracted the taster is from the wine. Likewise, the more decorated and distracting typography is, the more elusive its legibility becomes.

27

Beatrice Warde

the fact I can make arbitrary sounds that

when he bellows. But a good speaking

will lead a total stranger to think my own

voice is one which is inaudible as a voice.

thought. It is sheer magic that I should be

It is the transparent goblet again! I need

able to hold a one-sided conversation

not warn you that if you begin listening

by means of black marks on paper with

to the inflections and speaking rhythms

an unknown person halfway across the

of a voice from a platform, you are falling

world. Talking, broadcasting, writing, and

asleep. When you listen to a song in a

printing are all quite literally forms of

language you do not understand, part

thought transference, and it is this ability

of your mind actually does fall asleep,

and eagerness to transfer and receive the

leaving your quite separate aesthetic

contents of the mind that is almost alone

sensibilities to enjoy themselves

responsible for human civilization.

unimpeded by your reasoning faculties.

The fine arts do that; but that is not the

If you agree with this, you will agree with

purpose of printing. Type well used is

my one main idea, i.e., that the most

invisible as type, just as the perfect talking

important thing about printing is that it

voice is the unnoticed vehicle for the

conveys thought, ideas, images, from one

transmission of words, ideas.

mind to other minds. This statement is

“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 guide you through the maze. ”

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

We may say, therefore, that printing may

page set in 14-pt. Bold Sans is, according

he delightful for many reasons, but that

to the laboratory tests, more ‘legible’

it is important, first and foremost, as a

than one set in 11 pt. Baskerville. A public

means of doing something. That is why it

speaker is more ‘audible’ in that sense

is mischievous to call any printed piece a

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The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

work of art, especially fine art: because that

I once was talking to a man who designed

would imply that its first purpose was to

a very pleasing advertising type that

exist as an expression of beauty for its own

undoubtedly all of you have used. I said

sake and for the delectation of the senses.

something about what artists think about

Calligraphy can almost be considered a

a certain problem, and he replied with a

fine art nowadays, because its primary

beautiful gesture: ‘Ah, madam, we artists

economic and educational purpose has

do not think—we feel!’ That same day I

been taken away; but printing in English

quoted that remark to another designer

will not qualify as an art until the present

of my acquaintance, and he, being less

English language no longer conveys ideas

poetically inclined, murmured: ‘I’m not

to future generations, and until printing

feeling very well today, I think!’ He was

itself hands its usefulness to some yet

right, he did think; he was the thinking

unimagined successor.

sort; and that is why he is not so good a painter, and to my mind ten times better as

There is no end to the maze of practices

a typographer and type designer than the

in typography, and this idea of printing as

man who instinctively avoided anything as

a conveyor is, at least in the minds of all

coherent as a reason.

the great typographers with whom I have had the privilege of talking, the one clue

I always suspect the typographic enthusiast

that can guide you through the maze.

who takes a printed page from a book and

Without this essential humility of mind,

frames it to hang on the wall, for I believe

I have seen ardent designers go more

that in order to gratify a sensory delight he

hopelessly wrong, make more ludicrous

has mutilated something infinitely more

mistakes out of an excessive enthusiasm,

important. I remember that T. M. Cleland,

than I could have thought possible. And with

the famous American typographer, once

this clue, this purposiveness in the back

showed me a very beautiful layout for a

of your mind, it is possible to do the most

Cadillac booklet involving decorations

unheard-of things, and find that they justify

in color. He did not have the actual text

you triumphantly. It is not a waste of time to

to work with in drawing up his specimen

go to the simple fundamentals and reason

pages, so he had set the lines in Latin.

from them. In the flurry of your individual

This was not only for the reason that you

problems, I think you will not mind spending

will all think of, if you have seen the old

half an hour on one broad and simple set of

typefoundries’ famous Quousque Tandem

ideas involving abstract principles.

copy (i.e., that Latin has few descenders

29

Beatrice Warde

and thus gives a remarkably even line).

I see is the Three Musketeers and their

No, he told me that originally he had set

comrades swaggering up and down the

up the dullest ‘wording’ that he could

streets of Paris. The third type of window

find (I dare say it was from Hansard), and

is one in which the glass is broken into

yet he discovered that the man to whom

relatively small leaded panes; and this

he submitted it would start reading and

corresponds to what is called ‘fine printing’

making comments on the text. I made

today, in that you are at least conscious

sonic remark on the mentality of Boards

that there is a window there, and that

of Directors, but Mr. Cleland said, ‘No:

someone has enjoyed building it. That

you’re wrong; if the reader had not been

is not objectionable, because of a very

practically forced to read—if he had not

important fact which has to do with the

seen those words suddenly imbued with

psychology of the subconscious mind.

glamour and significance—then the layout

This is that the mental eye focuses through

would have been a failure. Setting it in

type and not upon it. The type which,

Italian or Latin is only an easy way of saying

through any arbitrary warping of design

“This is not the text as it will appear.”’

or excess of ‘color,’ gets in the way of the

Let me start my specific conclusions with

mental picture to be conveyed is a bad

book typography, because that contains all

type. Our subconsciousness is always

the fundamentals, and then go on to a few

afraid of blunders (which illogical setting,

points about advertising.

tight spacing and too-wide unleaded lines can trick us into), of boredom, and of

The book typographer has the job of

officiousness. The running headline that

erecting a window between the reader

keeps shouting at us, the line that looks

inside the room and that landscape

like one long word, the capitals jammed

which is the author’s words. He may put

together without hair-spaces—these

up a stained-glass window of marvelous

mean subconscious squinting and loss of

beauty, but a failure as a window; that is,

mental focus.

he may use some rich superb type like text gothic that is something to he looked

And if what I have said is true of book

at, not through. Or he may work in what

printing, even of the most exquisite limited

I call transparent or invisible typography.

editions, it is fifty times more obvious

I have a book at home, of which I have

in advertising, where the one and only

no visual recollection whatever as far as

justification for the purchase of space is

its typography goes; when I think of it, all

that you are conveying a message—that

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The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

Window with decoration. This image complements Beatrice Warde’s metaphor of a stained glass window.

A window covered with stained glass removes the purpose of a window, causing the aesthetic of the window to stand out. This image can be compared to one without decoration on page 32.

31

Beatrice Warde

you are implanting a desire, straight into

the other craftsmen) will appreciate half

the mind of the reader. It is tragically easy

your skill. But you may spend endless

to throw away half the reader-interest of

years of happy experiment in devising that

an advertisement by setting the simple

crystalline goblet which is worthy to hold

and compelling argument in a face that

the vintage of the human mind.

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 from reading a really interesting text.

Printing demands a humility of mind, 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 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

32

The Crystal Goblet or Printing Should be Invisible

Window without decoration. This image complements Beatrice Warde’s metaphor of a stained glass window. A window left clear from decorations allows the purpose of a transparent window to be its obvious purpose. This image can be compared to one with decoration on page 30.

33

Colophon

This book adapts a popular software used in modern typesetting, Adobe InDesign CC, highlighting the various insights for ‘ideal’ typography through the lens of four authors.

Printing Printed and binded with a [binding method] binding on [paper type] paper in Canada.

Production Edited with Adobe Indesign CC 2019, Adobe Photoshop CC 2019, and Adobe Illustration CC 2019.

Type Set in Myriad Pro and Raleway.

Editor Edited by Jone Ko. All rights reserved.

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