PROJEKTE | PROJECTS
Wolfgang Weingart, Armin Hofmann [introduction]
Wolfgang Weingart, Armin Hofmann [introduction]: PROJEKTE | PROJECTS. Teufen: Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1979. First edition [400 copies the entire run]. Text in German and English. Plain chipboards and sewn spine. Printed dust jacket. Unpaginated. Elaborate graphic design throughout. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket.
9.25 x 11.75 book, planned as a series to showcase the work of exceptional students, PROJEKTE | PROJECTS presents the typography of James Faris and Gregory Vines, a combination of traditional metal and photographic typesetting techniques. Introduction by Armin Hofmann.
Project 1: James Faris. Tools, Process, Sensibility: Images of Typography in 26 Collages.
Project 2: Gregory Vines. The Gate in Bellinzona: ideas, Sketches and Designs. The 6 Covers for the "Typographische Monatsblatter," 1978.
Wolfgang Weingart remembered "The director of the Visual Communication Department asked me to design a brochure for a pilot program in the Basel School. At the time in 1983 our school typeshop was not equipped to set large amounts of text. Composing by hand was time-consuming and sending out for phototypesetting too costly. Computers were not yet used as a design tool, so I bought an electric Olivetti typewriter to solve the problem. Whether with simple or complicated instruments, unity in typographic design is like musical composition: an orchestration of inseparable relationships between individual letters, words, lines, text blocks and spatial intervals.
"Similar in its objective to the educational supplements for TM, the book PROJEKTE was originally planned as a continuing series to publish the work of exceptional students. Financial support for the undertaking waned, however, and the publisher Arthur Niggli printed and distributed the first and only volume in a small edition of 400 copies.
"PROJEKTE presented the research of two students both of whom combined traditional elements of metal typesetting with photographic techniques, experimenting with type and image on layers of transparent films. The first projects by James Faris, his typographic interpretations of a poem by Stephene Mallarme, was published in TM number 4/1979.
"The second project, was inspired by a gate in The Castello Grande of Bellinzona, was the work of Gregory Vines. His photographs, many drawings, and typographic sketches resulted in the design of six final film montages for a TM cover series in 1978.
"Armin Hofmann wrote the introduction for the book PROJEKTE in longhand. The vigorous character of the handwriting prompted me make a collage out of it -- with restraint. I didn't want to destroy the spontaneity of the handwritten text.
"Since the introduction of printing, the subtle relationship between type and image has presented a persistent problem. As a self-taught graphic designer one of the first time I confronted the difficulty was when planning the page layouts for a TM/communication series, Number 10/1976, that featured Lawrence Bach's abstract photographs, and when designing the catalogue for a jewelry convention in the same year."