Jan Tschichold

"Probably the most important work on typography and graphic design in the twentieth century."--Carl Zahn, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

An original account of the life and work of legendary designer Jan Tschichold and his role in the movement in Weimar Germany to create modern graphic design Richly illustrated with images from Jan Tschichold's little-known private collection of design ephemera, this important book explores a legendary figure in the history of modern graphic design through the artists, ideas, and texts from the Bauhaus that most influenced him. Tschichold (1902-1974), a prolific designer, writer, and theorist, stood at the forefront of a revolution in visual culture that made printed material more elemental and dynamic. His designs were applied to everyday graphics, from billboard advertisements and business cards to book jackets and invoices. This handsome volume offers a new understanding of Tschichold's work, and of the underlying theories of the artistic movement he helped to form, by analyzing his collections: illustrations, advertisements, magazines, and books by well-known figures, such as Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and László Moholy-Nagy, and lesser-known artist-designers, including Willi Baumeister, Max Burchartz, Walter Dexel, and Piet Zwart. This book also charts the development of the New Typography, a broad-based movement across Central Europe that included "The Ring," a group formed by Schwitters in 1927. Tschichold played a crucial role in defining this movement, documenting the theory and practice in his most influential book, The New Typography (1928), still regarded as a seminal text of graphic design.

The most complete study ever of this major figure in modern graphic arts.

Illustrated throughout, this book explores the modernist typographer Tschichold, and discusses the work seen in the context of his life and the times in which he lived. The book is introduced with a short essay by Robin Kinross, discussing Tschichold's present reputation.

Looking at the period between 1915 and 1950, Letters from the Avant-Garde is the first book to document the history of modern design and typography through the medium of printed stationery. Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, De Stijl, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, and other movements and institutions used letterheads to promote their ideas about form, function, and technology to an international community. The printed letterheads and other ephemera reproduced in this book are typographic self-portraits of some of the most fascinating figures in the development of modernism, including Herbert Bayer, Le Corbusier, El Lissitzky, F. T. Marinetti, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Kurt Schwitters, and Piet Zwart. Letters from the Avant-Garde features over 150 illustrations in full color, many published here for the first time. These experimental letterheads helped originate the modern discipline of design for corporate identity, and they show how avant-garde artists and designers engaged mass media in their work. This unique book will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history and theory of modern art, design, and typography.

Who are history's most influential graphic designers? In this fun, fast-paced introduction to the most iconic designers of our time, author John Clifford takes you on a visual history tour that’s packed with the posters, ads, logos, typefaces, covers, and multimedia work that have made these designers great. You’ll find examples of landmark work by such industry luminaries as El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, A.M. Cassandre, Alvin Lustig, Cipe Pineles, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Milton Glaser, Wim Crouwel, Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Paula Scher, and more. Who coined the term graphic design? Who turned film titles into an art? Who pioneered information design? Who was the first female art director of a mass-market American magazine? In Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Graphic Design, you start with the who and quickly learn the what, when, and why behind graphic design's most important breakthroughs and the impact their creators had, and continue to have, on the world we live in. Your favorite designer didn't make the list? Join the conversation at www.graphiciconsbook.com .

For the first time: the posters of the celebrated graphic artist and typographer. This book is an analytical examination of Tschichold s posters. It contains his own collection of posters, with works by Hans Arp, El Lissitzky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, and others, as well as the approximately 70 posters he designed himself."

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Penguin Books made the bold decision to completely redesign its publications. Examining how Jan Tschichold took on the Herculean task of creating a uniform design, this title surveys the typographic revolution that Tschichold masterminded at Penguin.

A revised edition of the standard guide to the avant-garde origins of modern graphicdesign and typography, illustrated with many iconic examples.

"Eminent calligrapher, designer and design historian Jan Tschichold here offers admirers of fine art and handwriting a stunning collection of over 300 years of the best of European calligraphic art. Treasury of Calligraphy presents 219 examples of work by dozens of Europe's master calligraphers--the cream of the manuals and copybooks, selected according to Tschichold's personal criteria of expressiveness and aesthetic importance. Here is the near-Gothic rodonda of 16th-century Spaniard Juan de Yciar; the variations on northern Fraktur and southern cursive practices by his German contemporary Caspar Neff; the sparingly used, dramatic ornaments of 17th-century Lyons master François Desmoulins; and magnificent scripts by Palatino, Wyss, Vespasiano, Cresci, van den Velde, Beauchesne and Baildon, Barbedor, Casanova, Snell, Bickham, Stirling and many others."--back cover.

Is typography an art or a science? The gradual tendency of the word typograph to mean typographic design and the emergence of the typographer as a professional in their own right is examined by Ruari McLean. Looking at the work of well-known typographers in England, Germany, France and the USA, McLean examines the development of typography, starting with in the 17th century with the Mechanick Exercises of Joseph Moxon, and progresses to the influences and work of the German typographer Jan Tschichold and his contemporaries.

Jan Tschichold, Designer: The Penguin Years is the first publication that focuses on Tschicholds typographic revolution that he applied to Penguins mass production of books.This well-researched work includes over a hundred full-color and black & white images representing a wide range of the Penguin Book Series that Tschichold was involved with during the mid to late 1940's. Many of Tschicholds preliminary hand drawn cover and title page designs are published here for the first time and show his meticulous attention to detail. The author explains, with many illustrations, the influences that drove Tschichold and his New Typography. Jan Tschichold, Designer: The Penguin Years also includes an extensive bibliography on Tschicholds writings and historical appendices of his inter-office memoranda and texts. The Book is essential reading for the specialized professional, student, and enthusiast who works in the typography, book design, or publishing industry. Co-Published with Lund Humphries, UK.