Jan Tschichold
Elemental Typography
THE NEW TYPOGRAPHY
Jan Tschichold changed his approach of traditional graphic style after his visit to the Bauhaus exhibition. He started to find new ways of communicating and reach a more experimental way of working, at the same time, find a simple and practical approach.
For modernist designers it is essential to give pure and direct expression to the contents of whatever is printed: "Just as in the works of technology and nature, 'form' must be created out of function. Only then can we achieve typography that expresses the spirit of modern man. The function of printed text is communication, emphasis (word value), and the logical sequence of the contents."
https://creativepro.com/jan-tschichold-master-typographer-of-the-20th-century/
It's all extremely toward legibility, employing forms that comply with the natural inclination of the human eye to seek harmony and ease.
In Tschichold's new typography rules, centred type of traditional design has been considered as an outdated typestyle. So his work is almost non-centred design. White space was used to present a simply and clear view of contents in order to deliver messages quickly and effectively.
He abandoned ornamentation and approach legibility through simplicity. Only the most important information has been represented. I think his work has some kind of "industrial" feeling, which has clear purpose and refuses any time wasting.
He condemned all typefaces but sans-serif. "Because of its simplicity, the even weight of its lines, and its nicely balanced proportions, sans serif forms pleasing and easily distinguished word patterns — a most important element in legibility and easy reading." Also, big word spacing make the included information much more easier to read. The effective use of different sizes and weights of type let people's eyes travel, first conveying those information that has priority.
Meanwhile, the effective use of colour separates the different contents into several blocks, which at the same time has helped the audience sort out the information in order to make the information readable and easier to understand.
The work above all employe asymmetry and use geometric shapes to clarify images and texts and also add visual strength to the work. Line could be seen as a kind of instruction for the audience, explaining where and how to receive the information.
"Asymmetry is the rhythmic expression of functional design. In addition to being more logical, asymmetry has the advantage that its complete appearance is far more optically effective and symmetry.”
Reader is passive, detached and objective. Functions of typography has been enhanced, which is to simply deliver messages.
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Zurich Town Hall
poster advertisements for its theater productions
In the work above, the use of geometric shapes is similar with Tschichold, which is bold and strong with strong sense of simplicity. They both use Modern typography as a modern, universal method of communication. Beside the purpose of adding legibility, Müller-Brockmann also use the simplicity style to make the message understandable to people from different culture, breaking language barrier.
As one of the key players in the Swiss School of international Style, his career included the Second World War, the Cold War and the growing influence of a Europe on the mend from destruction and fear, he certainly influenced not only a design style that influenced designers on a global scale. It was a time of rebirth for many nations that lay in ruins, rebuilding and rethinking centuries of tradition that were forced to change due to the brutality of war and cruelty.
Compared to Tschichold's work, the geometric shapes has been displayed in a more dynamic way, which add a sense of music flowing and a sense of harmony. Typography is not simply a communication tool, but a media that make the message transfer through the whole world and evoke universal emotions. It was the harmony and simplicity of these pieces that influenced a post-war world that had lost the sense of central nationalism and gained a lesson in the need for globalisation.
In the work above, he carefully display texts and images to suggest separated blocks of contents, no matter it is vertical or diagonal. This is different from Tschichold's method, which use visible lines to create blocks.
https://www.jotform.com/blog/josef-muller-brockmann-principal-of-the-swiss-
What is different from Jan Tschichold is his approach of attracting and evoking interests of the audience. It is more “audience-based” designs rather than putting them in a passive situation. To be more specific, reader is passive, detached and objective to Tschichold's work. But in Müller-Brockmann's work, interplay between a viewer and image has been evoked through various composition and the combination between images and texts. Instead of focusing on controlling the eye and dismissing the creativity of viewing, they give the audience space to feel and imagine.
The use of images has also used to create a strong emotion of what were delivered. For example, the woman who covering her ears has strongly suggest the feeling of sound and a distinct emotion. Also, in the poster describing a car careening a small child, the use of angle and play of scale strongly suggest an intense sense. People even could hear the sound of braking!
All in all, Müller-Brockmann focused more on the initiative of human beings than Jan Tschichold. And the role of visual communication has been enhanced on a higher and international level.
David Carson
Carson's work is characterised by chaotic and messy typography and overlapping organisation of images, which is experimental and has broken the traditional grid of graphic. I think his approach of delivering personal feelings through designing is the biggest difference with previous designers. Without any trainings on grids or schools of thought, his work is not as “academic” as the work of Tschichold and Josef, which I believe has made his communicating method more sensitive and intuitive.
"When David Carson had to design a layout for a magazine, he first read the article and then tried to visually reproduce the message and recreate the concept."
https://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-david-carson-09-22-2013/
Ray Gun magazine January 1995
With this cover Carson didn't use any cover lines as people usually did. "I looked at this portrait and realized you really didn’t need to say anything else, the landscape of his face said it all." The content was about keith richards coming clean about sex, drugs, rock and roll etc, from his face we can already feel a strong emotion or determination, cover lines are needless and could even make the emotion interpretation not that strong.
For the contents about different rock stars talking about teachers they had lusted after in school in this beach culture article ‘hot for teacher’. In this cover, a teacher is sitting on some books, and the type lustfully leans toward her in order to reflect what the rock stars talking about. I think Carson actually rethink and reproduce the information based on his understand, which is subjective and is totally different from what Jan Tschichold states about objectivity in Modern Typography.
Ray Gun Magazine
This is an opener for a long article and interview with singer songwriter morrissey. Reading through the article, Carson found the quote ‘I have no interest whatsoever in any aspect of whordom’ was interesting and had potential to be transferred into visual language. "I chose to use this large in the opener and cropped him a bit – as he was a bit mysterious in this interview – and in general at that time." His design is based on what he feels and what he observes so far. Organisation of typography is disorder and in different typography styles. The combination of images of Morrissey and the text work as a whole to interpret the content.
‘mixed messages’ from beach culture magazine
NIKE air challenge advertisement
"My work uses very few software tricks, or even color. it’s about font choice, cropping and basic, often intuitive design decisions, ones that are appropriate for the client, audience, and myself."
What is similar with Josef Müller-Brockmann is he also trying to make messages understood by the audience from different culture, breaking language barrier.
A painful craft of precision and consistency are no longer the only option due to appearance of new software and technology. Designers were liberated to reject the rule-based traditional typography and translate their messages into visual languages whatever they wanted.
Rather than an objective “message-deliverer” as Jan Tschichold stated, Carson’s work is carrying his personal emotions based on his personal life experiences and his opinions and feels about the contents of the messages are supposed to be delivered.
" I’m most fascinated about how social media can work with good design to produce desired and effective results. I still think it’s largely an untapped area. I’m always following world events, news, scanning everything really. life in all its details continues to fascinate me endlessly. I’m watching the various eco movements, politics, new products, and constantly wondering how design can play a bigger, more effective and more important role in all of this."
On the contrast, new technology has led to “unity” of design works, which is a significant part in Tschichold’s New Typography. He rejected the idea that all typography should in one form or grid, and believe the uniqueness is the point that make work strong. Because of this, he didn’t use too much technology approaching his work, which made his work distinct in that period. In the work above, crooked texts and cut typography both suggest a childlike handmade sense, which could be one of the reasons of being distinct and attractive.
"I believe strongly the more one can bring personal uniqueness into the work, the better the work becomes. Anyone can buy the same software and do reasonable work. I think overall designers today have gotten lazy, and let the programs and computers make too many decisions for them."
https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/david-carson/
Ray Gun Magazine
Although Carson has broken so many rules even without knowing them, he still expect basic rules of typography toward legibility, employing forms that comply with the natural inclination of the human eye to seek harmony and ease. In this cover, the image is all blurred but the head of the person, which could be seen as a centre in the whole composition and gains the most focus. The weight of strokes are various to clarify the order to be received by the audience, which come back some traditional rules that previous designers has stated.
Theo Van Doesburg
The first cover of De Stijl magazine, used from 1917 trough 1920, carried an abstract image by Vilmos Huszar.
De Stijl has come to represent their common aims and utopian vision. The essential idea underlying De Stijl’s radical utopian program was the creation of a universal aesthetic language based in part on a rejection of the decorative excesses of Art Nouveau in favor of a simple, logical style that emphasized construction and function, one that would be appropriate for every aspect of modern life.
In this De Stijl magazine cover, visual compositions were simplified to the vertical and horizontal directions and only used black and white to bring a strong visual narrative.
Because of using of geometric shapes only, the whole cover looks like a building landscape, so as many other De Stijl works. I like the simplicity and the strong sense of contrast created in this cover. I think De Stijl style is not simply an art style, it has also successfully provoked the desire for common sense that suit for our modern society. I think their approaching common value and the consciousness about modern society have been delivered by the work through simply and non-centred visual compositions.
Square Alphabet
Doesburg drew a sans-serif modular alphabet that is constructed entirely of evenly weighted strokes. Each character is based upon a square divided into a raster of 5x5.
It is not difficult to know that each character is created within a square, which brings a heavy, industrial and reliable characteristics. This provided me a way of creating alphabet, which is creating characters within a fixed shape, it could also be a rectangular or a circular shape. One thing I am a little bit confused about this alphabet is how the letter “J” has been created. As it is created within a square, then the recognizable feature of letter “J” has been vanished.
I like how the geometric shapes of the characters contribute to the vertical and horizontal composition. They are not just used as letters, a close relationship with the content has been created through making them a visual element. This inspires me about how can I make my specimen to bring life to fonts I’ve created.
Two black squares and the vertical & horizontal layout of the characters work together really well and has created a strong visual composition symmetrically.
Eben Sorkin Plaster 2011
Tony De Marco Concreta 2011B
Marta Cerda Alimbau Rigid 2013
Isa Lloret Modular Alphabet 2015
-Consistency could be achieved through dividing one character into several parts, through enlarging or reducing negative spaces and mixing simple geometric shapes.
Anna Kulachek
Prague School of Design 2015
Most of Kulachek’s work have strong sense of contrast, no matter in color or composition. Lots of her work are created in primary colors, which bring visual shock to the viewer.
Doug Hream Blunt
I find the second work is quite interesting, in which parts of the characters are hidden behind red dots and remain recognizable at the same time. It looks like the characters go through the red dots and has made the characters and the visual elements as a whole. It is an interesting direction to bring life to the fonts and worth to try.
Christian S at Bar Strelka
The third work inspired me so much about the specimen. The series of posters is like a moving image. At first, parts of the characters are placed “casually” and couldn’t be recognized. Finally in the last poster, recognizable characters are formed. They are so vivid and playful as it looks like being dropped on the floor and everything becomes messy. And then someone picks them up and has sorted them out into what are shown in the last poster. It suggests a process, which brings a sense of movement.