LEBEN UND WERK DES TYPOGRAPHEN JAN TSCHICHOLD
Jan Tschichold, Werner Klemke
Jan Tschichold, Werner Klemke: LEBEN UND WERK DES TYPOGRAPHEN JAN TSCHICHOLD. Dresden: VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1977. First edition [Mit Einer Einleitung Von Werner Klemke, Der Bibliographie Aller Schriften Und Fünf Grossen Aufsätzen Von Jan Tschichold Sowie Über Zweihundert, Teils Bunten Abbildungen]. Text in German. Quarto. Brick cloth titled in gilt. Uncoated letterpressed dust jacket. Publishers plain slipcase. 300 pp. 190 color plates and black and white examples. 12 pages of black and white photographs. 20 text figures. Multiple paper stocks. Dust jacket lightly chipped with several vintage tape repairs to lower edge verso. Uncoated jacket splitting along rear spine juncture. A nearly fine copy in a very good dust jacket housed in a very good example of the Publishers plain stapled chipboard slipcase.
8 x 10.85 hardocver book with 300 pages including 190 color plates and black and white work examples, 12 pages of black and white photographs, and 20 text figures all reflecting Tschichold’s lifelong interest in the typographic arts and book design. A beautifully designed and printed volume that honors the author and his commitment to detailed excellence.
From The New Typography, trans. Ruari McLean (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1995) [first published in 1928]: "Working through a text according to these principles will usually result in a rhythm different from that of former symmetrical typography. 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 than symmetry."
"Hence the predominance of asymmetry in the New Typography. Not least, the liveliness of asymmetry is also an expression of our own movement and that of modern life; it is a symbol of the changing forms of life in general when asymmetrical movement in typography takes the place of symmetrical repose. This movement must not however degenerate into unrest or chaos. A striving for order can, and must, also be expressed in asymmetrical form. It is the only way to make a better, more natural order possible, as opposed to symmetrical from which does not draw its laws from within itself but from outside."
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.
Jan Tschichold (German, 1902 – 1974) was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer. Tschichold was the son of a provincial signwriter, and he was trained in calligraphy. This artisan background and calligraphic training set him apart from almost all other noted typographers of the time, since they had inevitably trained in architecture or the fine arts.
Tschichold's artisan background may help explain why he never worked with handmade papers and custom fonts as many typographers did, preferring instead to use stock fonts on a careful choice from commercial paper stocks. After the election of Hitler in Germany, all designers had to register with the Ministry of Culture, and all teaching posts were threatened for anyone who was sympathetic to communism.
After Tschichold took up a teaching post in Munich at the behest of Paul Renner, both he and Tschichold were denounced as "cultural Bolshevists.”Ten days after the Nazis surged to power in March 1933, Tschichold and his wife were arrested. During the arrest, Soviet posters were found in his flat, casting him under suspicion of collaboration with communists. All copies of Tschichold's books were seized by the Gestapo "for the protection of the German people.” After six weeks a policeman somehow found him tickets for Switzerland, and he and his family managed to escape Nazi Germany in August 1933. Apart from short visits to England in 1937-1938 (at the invitation of the Penrose Annual), and 1947-1949 (at the invitation of Ruari McLean, the British typographer, with whom he worked on the design of Penguin Books), he lived the rest of his life in Switzerland. Jan Tschichold died in the hospital at Locarno in 1974.