OCTAVO. JOURNAL OF TYPOGRAPHY: 90.7
[The New Synthesis]
Michael Burke, Mark Holt, Hamish Muir [Editors]
Michael Burke, Mark Holt, Hamish Muir [Editors]: OCTAVO. JOURNAL OF TYPOGRAPHY 90.7 [The New Synthesis]. London: Eight Five Zero, July 1990. First edition, published in an edition of 3,000 copies. A nearly fine copy in a nearly fine printed vellum jacket: spine crown slightly pushed.
8.25 x 11.75 journal with 16pp text, 4pp cover, 8pp trace jacket. 4-colour process, matt + gloss varnish. Elaborate design and production.
Contents:
The 'ring neuer werbegestalter' 1927 - 1933. Prof Friedrich Friedl. An important survey of the work of this pan-European movement with an informed assessment of the pioneering typographic approach common to all the ring's members who formulated many design principles still in use today. Includes work by George Trump, Hans Leistikow, Willi Baumeister, Paul Shuitema, Max Burchatz, Piet Zwart, Robert Michel, Jan Tschichold, Cesar Domela, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Adolf Meyer, Werner Graff, Kurt Schwitters, Hans Richter and others.
Type and Image. Bridget Wilkins. Questions conventional ideas of reading, legibility and typographic layout.
Mobilizing Words. Roland Schaer. Director of Cultural Services at the Musee d'Orsay discusses Philippe Apleoig's innovative work for the museum and the Festival d'ete. With commentary from Apeloig.
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
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.
The idea came from Kurt Schwitters and was trumpeted in a 1928 issue of Das Kunstblatt: " A group of nine artists active as advertising designers has formed under the presidency of Kurt Schwitters. Baumeister, Burchatz, Dexel, Domela, Michel, Schwitters,Trump, Tschichold andVordemberge-Gildewart belong to the association."
Before forming The Ring, Schwitters had broadened his approach to visual art to include graphic design, even going through the avant-garde right of passage of designing a sans-serif typeface.
The affiliation of The Ring appears to have been somewhat loose, its activities consisting manily of exhibitions, either promoting the group on its own or contributing to larger events, such as the Werkbund's Film und Foto in 1929.
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."