Typografische Monatsblätter March 1971
Schweizer Graphische Mitteilungen / Revue suisse de l’imprimerie
Rudolf Hostettler [Editor]
[Swiss Typographic Monthly Magazine: Journal for Typographic Composition, Design, Communication, Printing and Production]. St. Gallen: Zollikofer / Schweizerischer Typographenbund Bern, Jahrgang 90, Nr. 3, March 1971. Text in German. Slim quarto. Perfect bound and stitched wrappers. 97 pp. Illustrated articles and trade advertisements. Cover Design: Robert Büchler. Typeface used throughout: Univers. Former owners inkstamp to front panel and name to first page. One signature mistrimmed during binding with no loss. Wrappers lightly rubbed and spine somewhat roughened, but a very good or better copy.
9 x 11.685 typography journal with 88 pages of illustrated articles. Whether you call it the Swiss Typographic Monthly Magazine, Swiss Graphic Communications or The Review of Swiss Printing, you know the advertisements alone are worth the price of admission.
The Swiss Style (also known as International Typographic Style) was developed in Switzerland in the 1950s. This style was defined by the use of sans-serif typefaces, and employed a page grid for structure, producing asymmetrical layouts. By the 1960s, the grid had become a routine procedure. The grid came to imply the style and methods of Swiss Graphic Design. Also stressed was the combination of typography and photography as a means of visual communication. The primary influential works were developed as posters, which were seen to be the most effective means of communication.
Contents:
- Anteil an der Entstehung dieser Gedenkschrift haben:
- Frau Suzanne Ruder-Schwarz, Basel
- Rudolf Hostettler, St.Gallen
- B. von Grünigen, a. Direktor AGS, Basel
- Kurt Hauert, Basel
- Theo Eble, Basel
- Willi Leonhardt, Basel
- Rolf Zähner, Laufen
- Alfred Roth, Prof. ETH, Zürich
- Adrian Frutiger, Paris
- Hansrudolf Schwabe, Pharos-Verlag Basel
- Yves Zimmermann, Barcelona, Spanien
- Josef Felix, Allschwil
- Karl Gerstner, Düsseldorf BRD
- Fritz Gottschalk, Montreal, Kanada
- Jürg Rössler, Basel
- Marcel Berlinger, Basel
- Bruno Pfäffli, Paris
- James C. Douglas, Paris
- August Maurer, Basel
- Helmut Schmid, Osaka, Japan
- Christian Pulver, Binningen
- André Gürtler, Therwil
- Hans-Rudolf Lutz, Zürich
- Wolfgang Weingart, Basel
- Ernst Christen, Basel
- Tagefachklasse für Buchdruck 1970/1971
- Armin Hofmann, Basel
- Franz Fedier, Bern
- Lenz Klotz, Basel
- Jean-Claude Augsburger, Basel
- Urs Dürr, Pratteln
- Armin Züllig, Basel
- Heinrich Fleischhacker, Basel
- Robert Büchler, Basel
The Typografische Monatsblätter was one of the most important journals to successfully disseminate the phenomenon of Swiss typography to an international audience, as well as spread the burgeoning ideas of the New Wave style. In existence for almost eighty years, the journal was a vital forum for concepts and discussion. Throughout these years, the Swiss typographic journal witnessed significant moments in the history of typography and graphic design. In the second half of the 20th century factors such as technology, socio-political contexts, and aesthetic ideologies profoundly affected and transformed visual language.
Emil Ruder (Swiss, 1914 – 1970) was a Swiss typographer and graphic designer, who with Armin Hofmann joined the faculty of the Schule für Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design).
He is distinguishable in the field of typography for developing a holistic approach to designing and teaching that consisted of philosophy, theory and a systematic practical methodology. He expressed lofty aspirations for graphic design, writing that part of its function was to promote 'the good and the beautiful in word and image and to open the way to the arts' (TM, November 1952 Issue). He was one of the major contributors to Swiss Style design. He taught that typography's purpose was to communicate ideas through writing, as well as placing a heavy importance on Sans-serif typefaces. No other designer since Jan Tschichold was as committed as Ruder to the discipline of letterpress typography or wrote about it with such conviction.
Ruder was trained as a typesetter in Basel (1929-1933), and studied in Paris from 1938-1939. Ruder began his education in design at the age of fifteen when he took a compositor's apprenticeship. By his late twenties, he began attending the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich where the principles of Bauhaus and Tschichold's new typography were taught.
Ruder first began teaching in 1942 at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule in the Swiss city of Basel. There, he was in charge of typography for trade students. He became the head of the Department of Apprentices in Applied arts by 1947. In 1947 Ruder met the artist-printer Armin Hofmann. Ruder and Hoffman began a long period of collaboration. Their teaching achieved an international reputation by the mid-1950s. By the mid-1960s their courses were maintaining lengthy waiting lists. He was a contributing writer and editor for Typografische Monatsblätter (Typographic Monthly), which was a popular trade publication of the time. In 1946, his design was unsuccessful in the competition for the cover design of Typographische Monatsblätter.
During the post war years when, in almost every field of applied art, there was still no sign of transition to a new form of expression better fitted to the times, Emil Ruder was one of the first pioneers to discard all of the conventional rules of traditional typography and to establish new laws of composition more in accord with the modern era. In spite of his bent for pictorial thinking, he was never tempted to indulge in merely playful designs in which the actual purpose of printing - legibility - would be lost. Ruder's insistence that the primary aim of typography was communication did not exclude aesthetic effects. Contrast was one of his methods. He was essentially devoted to the craft of letterpress printing.
From 1946, Emil Ruder slowly emerged in Typografische Monatsblätter as an exponent of Modernism. Between 1957 and 1959 he contributed a series of four articles with the title 'Wesentliches' (Fundamentals): 'The Plane', 'The Line', 'The Word' and 'Rhythm'. They formed the basis of his thinking, summed up in 1967 in the book Typography.
In 1952, Schweizer Graphische Mitteilungen (SGM) fused with Revue Suisse de I'Imprimerie and Typographische Monatsblätter into a single monthly publication known by the initials TM.Emil Ruder was among the chief figures in the new magazine, and was a key force in typographical thinking. Three articles, in February 1952, established Ruder as a supporter of radical change. In January 1952, the first issue of the combined magazines retained Times as the text typeface; He introduced Monotype in the February issue that included his Bauhaus article.
After twenty-five years of teaching, Ruder published a heavily illustrated book capturing his ideas, methods and approach. The book, Typographie: A Manual for Design, represents a critical reflection on Ruder’s teaching and practice as well as a lifetime of accumulated knowledge. Other than publishing his book Typographie, he is known for his use of the grid system in Swiss Style design as well as his poster designs.