Elementary typography
The Elementary typography , new typography or functional typography is a style within the font and print design from the early 20th century.
history
Elementary typography is a reaction to the decline in typographic design that began at the end of the 19th century. New inventions in the field of printing technology (e.g. lithography and offset printing ) suddenly offered a multitude of design options. This led to an excessive use of moldings, frames and ornaments; the scriptures themselves were often mixed up randomly. Therefore, they soon returned to a simple, natural and technically conditioned typography.
The focus here was on the one hand on establishing typography as an independent artistic form of expression. At the same time, the typographic design should also meet the practical requirements of the time (advertising, commercial prints, etc.). The New Typography movement initially came primarily from painters and visual artists who sought to elevate the everyday to a work of art and, in turn, to make art a useful function.
The concept of New Typography was first mentioned in 1923 by the Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy . In an essay on the occasion of a Bauhaus exhibition, he urged u. a. a clear and unambiguous font design, a move away from upper and lower case and the sensible use of the new machine possibilities.
Jan Tschichold as a representative of elementary typography
However, Jan Tschichold provided the actual impetus for the implementation of the new ideas in everyday use . As a trained typographer, he not only had in-depth specialist knowledge, but also had years of practical experience through his activities in the areas of typesetting and printing.
In the special edition elementare typographie of the Typographische Mitteilungen (1925) he took up Moholy-Nagy's theses. In contrast to this, Tschichold did not write for an initiated group of artists, but turned to the commercial printer with practical suggestions . His textbook Die Neue Typographie, published three years later . A manual for contemporary workers therefore offered numerous practical instructions and concrete examples that soon found their way into professional practice. Tschichold saw in functional typography primarily an enormous relief and simplification for the handling of the typesetting and printing practice. Accordingly, he formulated his theses on the new typographic design in a catchy and pragmatic way:
- Use as few fonts and sizes as possible
- Italic and bold are particularly suitable as fonts
- Only rarely use capital letters; if, always block .
These theses spread very quickly and still have an impact today as general “rules” in the sophisticated typography.
Advancement and contradictions
Jan Tschichold was arrested during the National Socialist regime under Adolf Hitler and then forced to emigrate. This experience, together with his decades of professional experience and due distance from the beginnings of elementary typography, allowed Tschichold to relativize some of the statements and views he had expressed in his work Die Neue Typographie . The strict rules of the New Typography, striving for finality and equality, now seemed to him frighteningly parallel to the totalitarian sentiment of the fascist regimes.
"Obvious similarities consist in the ruthless restriction of typefaces, a parallel to Goebbel's infamous 'Gleichschaltung' and the more or less militaristic arrangement of lines."
"Obvious similarities lie in the brutal restriction of the fonts, a parallel to Goebbels' shameful 'Gleichschaltung' and the more or less militaristic alignment of the lines."
Tschichold also disliked the unconditional dedication to machine production. He condemned the efforts of many typographers to force a “modern” design on even traditional works with classic content. To this he counted the use of the grotesque for running text.
According to Tschichold, the advantages of elementary typography, the uniform typesetting rules and better structured typesetting can only apply to commercial printing , not to longer-term book texts. Tschichold, however, did not call for a departure from the New Typography towards a "sentimental escape into the past". Rather, he called for a resumption of traditional typography in combination with the modern advantages of elementary typography. According to Tschichold, the New Typography movement only meant a “snapshot of the cleaning process” in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Tschichold, on the other hand, valued traditional typography as a timeless, internationally valid design basis.
Understandably, Tschichold's new statements sparked controversy. For example, the discussion with the Swiss architect and artist Max Bill, who was more concerned with certain stylistic and artistic elements of the New Typography and ignored the practicable value, became known. Tschichold, however, defended his constant striving for order and simplification of typographic design and never doubted the general and practical value of his textbook.
Swiss typography
The Swiss typography built from about 1955 on the New Typography. This direction is also characterized by a strictly factual representation, partly also asymmetry, the main use of sans serif fonts in as few font sizes as possible . Other features are extreme white spaces and the absence of any decorative elements.
The Swiss style have u. a. embossed:
Against this background, the development of a new grid system by Karl Gerstner in 1957 should also be noted, which reinforced the objectivity and practicality of the font and text design.
See also
literature
- Supplement Die Neue Typographie. On the newly published manual by Jan Tschichold from 1925. Contributions by Jan Tschichold, Werner Daede and Gerd Fleischmann. Brinkmann & Bose , 1987.
- Jan Tschichold : The New Typography. A manual for contemporary workers. Publishing house of the Educational Association of German Book Printers, Berlin 1928. - New edition: Brinkmann & Bose. 1987. ISBN 3-92266-023-1 .
- Iwan [Jan] Tschichold: Elementary typography. Typographic messages. October issue / special issue 1925. Leipzig - New edition: Schmidt, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-87439-129-9 .
- Susanne Wehde: Typographic Culture. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 2000.
- Julia Meer: A new look at the new typography. On the reception of the avant-garde in the professional world of the 1920s. Transcript, Bielefeld 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-3259-0 .
Web links
- The Bauhaus typography - by Ralf Hermann