ASYMMETRIC TYPOGRAPHY
Jan Tschichold, Ruari McLean [Translator]
Jan Tschichold [translated by Ruari McLean]: ASYMMETRIC TYPOGRAPHY. New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation/Cooper & Beatty, Ltd, Toronto, 1967. First English edition. Octavo. Black cloth stamped in silver and red. Printed dust jacket. Purple endpapers. 96 pp. 42 illustrations. 1 fold-out. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. The nicest copy we have handled — red spine text sun faded, otherwise a fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Rare thus.
5.75 x 9 .1875 hardcover book bound in full cloth with 96 pages and 42 illustrations produced in a variety of spot-colors, including one fold-out. Ruari Mclean's translation of Tschichold's Typographische Gestaltung from 1935. A beautifully-produced book with many typographic examples from Jan Tschichold, El Lissitzky, Karel Teige, Wladislaw Strzeminski, László Moholy-Nagy, and Josef Albers.
This information is for typophiles only: Voted one of the AIGA Fifty Books Of The Year for 1967: “Published by Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York in cooperation with Cooper and Beatty, Limited,Toronto. 96 pages; 5 3/4 x 9 3/16; edition of 7,500; $7.50. Designed by Jan Tschichold; Composed in Monotype Bembo; 11/13 with display in Monotype Bembo by Cooper and Beatty, Limited. Letterpress by T. H. Best Printing Company, Limited on Rolland Book Super-Calendered and Imperial Enamel supplied by Whyte-Hooke papers. Bound by T. H. Best Printing Company, Limited in Canadian Indutries Ltd. PX 77 Diamond Black supplied by Buntin Reid Paper Company. Endlinings in Strathmore Chroma mauve supplied by Buntin Reid Paper Company. “
From the book: “Here is the first English translation of Tschichold's book, published in Switzerland in 1935, and now revised and brought up to date. Asymmetric typography is used in the majority of modern visual communication media - yet this 'classic', which more than any other book has influenced modern typographic design, has never before been translated. The author discusses in detail the application of asymmetric design to different printing methods such as gravure, offset and letterpress. There are also detailed chapters on typographic refinements concerning type setting, grouping, line endings; tables, colour and paper. In addition each chapter is illustrated with practical examples printed in several colours.”
Here is how this edition came to be published, according to Ruari McLean (from his True To Type, A Typographical Autobiography): "When he left Penguins in 1949, Jan Tschichold returned to Switzerland, but we kept in touch, and saw him and Edith on their occasional visits to London. No English translation of any of his books had yet appeared; I had translated his little book on how to draw layouts, Typografische Entwurfstechnik, 1932, of only 24 pages, because I thought it so useful, but had never found a publisher for it. (It was eventually published as How to Draw Layouts in a limited edition of 150 copies by Merchiston Publishing, of Napier University in Edinburgh, in 1991.) Now he asked me to translate his Typographische Gestaltung (Typographic Design) which had been published in Basle in 1935. It was a more measured and persuasive account of his views than his first and epoch-making Die neue Typographie of 1928. This proposed new translation was to be really a new edition: Jan wanted to omit some passages which he considered had been of interest only to Swiss and German readers, and he had also found several new and better illustrations. We called the new version Asymmetric Typography, and it was published, i.e. financed, not by a conventional publisher, but by a highly intelligent firm of typesetters in Toronto called Cooper & Beatty. The distribution was done in Britain by Faber & Faber and in USA by Reinhold.
One of the Cooper & Beatty directors, W.E. Trevitt, wrote a short introduction in which he said of Tschichold ‘He fascinates us. His seeming rejection of the ideas put forward in this present book caused a turbulence among designers that has yet to settle. How could he? And how could he then do those classical solutions so maddeningly well? . . . Among the campfires of typographers Typographische Gestaltung has become the great underground book of the century.’ His introduction ended ‘If you are asking yourself why it took four years to reach publication date, then you are obviously neither a practising typographer nor an expert in transoceanic correspondence. I now happen to be both for which I will remain eternally grateful.’ The book was published in 1967, and we were eternally grateful to Cooper & Beatty. It was the first ever of Jan Tschichold’s books to be published in English, and the only one until the 1990s."
“A few years after Die neue Typographie Hitler came. I was accused of creating ‘un-German’ typography and art, and so I preferred to leave Germany. Since 1933 I have lived in Basle, Switzerland. In the very first years I tried to develop what I had called Die neue Typographie and wrote another textbook, Typographische Gestaltung in 1935 which is much more prudent than Die neue Typographie and still a useful book!
“In time, typographical things, in my eyes, took on a very different aspect, and to my astonishment I detected most shocking parallels between the teachings of Die neue Typographie and National Socialism and Fascism. Obvious similarities consist in the ruthless restriction of typefaces, a parallel to Goebbels’ infamous Gleichschaltung, and more or less militaristic arrangements of lines.
“Because I did not want to be guilty of spreading the very ideas, which had compelled me to leave Germany, I thought over again what a typographer should do. Which typefaces are good and what arrangement is the most practicable?
“By guiding the compositors of a large Basle printing office I learnt a lot about practicability. Good typography has to be perfectly legible and is, as such, the result of intelligent planning. The classical typefaces such as Garamond, Janson, Baskerville and Bell are undoubtedly the most legible. Sans serif is good for certain cases of emphasis, but is used to the point of abuse today. The occasions for using sans serif are as rare as those for wearing obtrusive decorations.” — Jan Tschichold. “Lecture to the Typography USA seminar sponsored by The Type Directors Club, New York on 18 April 1959.” Print XVIII 1 (1964): 16–17.
From a review by Nicolete Gray in The Private Library: “Three basic principles are given for 'asymmetric typography'; the intelligent arrangement of the text with regard to its sense and to legibility, the making of this into something visually beautiful, and proper use of the technical means all the rules given are based on the principle that jobs must be capable of being set easily by machine, although the final superiority in quality of hand setting is admitted. In practice this means that the typographer is free to group his text matter with regard to its message and without regard to symmetry; he is recommended to create the desired emphasis and at the same time enlivening visual contrasts, by using different weights of the same type-face, or by mixing types - always with meticulous care in line and letter spacing; in jobbing work he should group his material so that the blank space of the page is positive and the text elements are so related to it and to one another that the result is a living entity, comparable to an abstract painting. He can enrich his design by the expressive use of rules, tints, arrows or circles, or incorporate photography or photomontage; the use of oblique setting is mentioned, but recommended sparingly. The book includes a historical section, and another on abstract painting of the twenties. It is in fact a comprehensive and practical exposition of a coherent and fully evolved typographic style which is undoubtedly of continuing value to modern designers. It is also a historic document of crucial importance in the history of twentieth-century 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.
Tschichold was an assistant to Hermann Delitsch at Leipzig Academy, and started freelance work (1921-23). He was active as a freelance typographer and calligrapher in Leipzig, identified himself as Iwan (1923-25). He edited “Elementare Typographie” published as a special number of Typographische Mitteilungen in 1925. Worked as a freelance in Berlin (1925-26). In 1926, he married with Edith Kramer and was invited to German Master Printer’s School, Munich, to teach typography and calligraphy. Identified himself as Jan. Started to design posters for Phoebus Palast in 1927.
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.
His major publications include: Die neue Typographie (1928); Typographische Gestaltung (1935); Der frühe chinesische Farbendruck (1940); Geschichte der Schrift in Bildern (1941); Meisterbuch der Schrift (1952); Willkürfreie Maßverhältnisse der Buchseite und des Satzspiegels (1962); Die Bildersammlung der Zehnbambushalle (1970, won the Gold medal of the Leipzig International Book Design Exhibition in 1971).