TYPOGRAFISCHE ENTWURFSTECHNIK
[Typographic Design Technique]

Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold: TYPOGRAFISCHE ENTWURFSTECHNIK [Typographic Design Technique]. Stuttgart: Verlag Dr. Fritz Wedekind & Co, 1932. First [only] edition. Quarto [ISO A 4]. Text in German. Yellow wrappers. 24 pp. Instructional typesetting examples, and instructions on how to design a standardized letterhead. Twine bound textblock loose from wrappers. Wrappers lightly soiled and handled. A very good copy. Rare.

8.25 x 11.75 softcover booklet with 24 well illustrated pages. "This book documents the now almost lost art of rendering type by hand as a way of planning, in Tschichold's words, the 'typographic structure of typesetting before its technical execution;' furthermore he directed his text towards the 'technique and possibilitities of mechanical typesetting,' for which a preparatory sketch was vital. Sanserif is taken as the first example (Futura in four weights) followed by Garamond, Bodoni, and Walbaum Fraktur (but strangely no slab-serif type), all typeset alongside reproductions of Tschichold's careful, but not obsessively perfect sketched versions. His practical recommendations included the endearingly pedantic: " All pencils must always be perfectly sharpened. With blunt pencils one cannot sketch. Sharp points are produced with fine sandpaper or with a pencil file." [Burke, p. 189]

A very rare document from the heroic first age of graphic design. Highly recommended.

Tschichold's principal claim for the new typography is that it is characteristic of the modern age. Writing at a time when many new mass produced products appeared on the market, his intention was to bring typography into line with these other manifestations of industrial culture. Similar to the Russian Constructivists, Tschichold lauds the engineer whose work is marked by "economy, precision," and the "use of pure constructional forms that correspond to the functions of the object."

Due to his solid training in typography, Tschichold was a much greater technician than either Lissitzky or Moholy-Nagy; his own assertions on modernist design were based on an intimate knowledge of typesetting techniques such as leading, spacing, and the overall arrangement of type on a page. One look at Moholy-Nagy's essay titled (curiously enough) Die Neue Typographie in STAATLICHES BAUHAUS 1919-1923 (Bauhausverlag Weimar-Munchen, 1923, p. 141) clearly proves that Tschichold could run circles around the type cases of his peers.

Tschichold strongly believed in the Zeitgeist argument that each age creates its own uniquely appropriate forms. That belief allowed him to formulate a set of principles for his time and reject all prior work, regardless of its quality. One of the characteristics of the modern age for Tschichold was speed. he felt that printing must facilitate a quicker and more efficient mode of reading. Whereas the aim of the older typography was beauty, clarity was the purpose of the New Typography.

Tschichold was the most eloquent spokesman of the Neue Werbergestalter (circle of new advertising designers) established by Kurt Schwitters in 1928 and helped to disseminate Constructivist principles with his books. He favored asymmetrical layouts and an orderly presentation instead of the centered arrangements of classical book printing or the fluid individualism of Art Nouveau. Grolier Club, A Century for the Century, 36 (in reference to the 1935 edition of Typographische Gestaltung):".with its mixture of types and asymmetrical composition, clearly exhibits the modern sensibility. Basically revolutionary in its design, such work was to push printing in a new direciton, and Tschichold was one of the first and one of the best practitioners of modernist style."

The Circle of New Advertising Designers (ring neue werbegestalter) was a group who coalesced after the first statements on the new typography by Tschchold and Moholy-Nagy, and their purpose was the promotion of a common vision of the avant-garde. Ring neue werbegestalter intentionally echoed the name of The Ring, a group of Berlin-based architects which had been formed a few years earlier.

In Heinz and Bodo Rausch's Gefesselter Blick (1930), The Ring's point of view was defined by Paul Shuitema , acknowledging that modern design involved the separation of hand and machine which previous generations had so strongly fought against: "the designer is not a draughtsman, but rather an organizer of optical and technical factors. His work should not be limited to making notes, placing in groups and organizing things technically."

Tschichold was more succinct: " I attempt to reach the maximum of purpose in my publicity works and to connect the single constructive elements harmoniously -- to design."

out of stock