OCTAVO
JOURNAL OF TYPOGRAPHY 86.2

Michael Burke, Mark Holt, Simon Johnson, Hamish Muir [Editors]

8.25 x 11.75 journal with 16pp text, 4pp cover, 8pp trace jacket. 5 colours: black, blue, grey, varnish, varnish. Elaborate design and production.

OCTAVO 86.2 [January 1987] Contents:

• Semantic Composition. Peter Mayer. Looks at Stefan Themerson's use of the internal vertical justification and discusses other related typographical works.
• Theory in Practise. Colin Maughan. A review of the work of designer and teacher Geoff White whose enthusiasm and dedication to typographic experimentation remain undiminished after thirty years.

"Simplicity of form is never a poverty, it is a great virtue." -- Jan Tschichold, quoted by the editors in issue 1.

This independent journal of typography was started with the intended aim of raising the level of awareness and discussion of typography in graphic design, poetry, the environment and art, to an international audience of fellow designers and typographers. The first issue was published in 1986 and the projected frequency was one issue every six months, with an emphasis upon the quality of printing and production. The magazine was scheduled to run to only 8 issues, as the name would suggest. That goal was met, but the time frame wasn't.

"If such a schedule suggested seriousness of purpose and a precise agenda of ideas, this was more than confirmed by the early issues. Two members of the team had studied with Wolfgang Weingart in Basel, and Octavo had a high-mindedness and purity that set it apart intellectually and aesthetically from both the commercial and 'style' wings of contemporary British graphics. Octavo was sternly opposed to typographic mediocrity, nostalgia, fashion, decoration, symmetry, centered type and the hated serif. It was for a semantically determined use of structure and the infinite possibilities of typographic experimentation. 'We take an international, modernist stance,' the first editorial concluded. 'This is necessary in England.'" -- Rick Poynor

Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.

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