Robyne (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} astartesyriaca) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} design_history,@ 2007-10-30 08:43:00 |
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Early 20th century Typography
In the early 20th century, avant-garde artists began working to re-invent the way in which words were presented on the page, so that their arrangement became works of art themselves.
An overly simplified history of their progression in pictures...
Some of the earliest inspiration for this can be found in the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire's "Calligrammes", such as Il Pleut ("It rains"), 1916:
At the same time, the Italian Futurists were "exploding" words on the page as a visual/textual manifestation of their violently passionate manifesto, creating "Parole in Libertà", or words in freedom. F.T. Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tuum, 1912:
Dada artists were very influnced by both Apollinaire (who is arguably credited with having coined the term "surrealism") and the futurists, and played with type in their own work. A print of Hugo Ball's sound poem Karawane, 1917:
Tristan Tzara Bulletin, 1918:
In 1928, Jan Tschichold published "The New Typography" which used examples of contemporary avant-garde page layout to explain what good page design could and should be. He suggested the use of:
• Assymmetrical layout
• Use of diagonals in layout
• Designed use of white space
• Emphasis on contrasting elements
• Variation in type size but standardization of type font: rejection of serif fonts and the adoption of sans serif
Running alongside, and often in coordination with, all of this were the burgeoning German Bauhaus and Dutch De Stijl movements. De Stijl was founded by a group of artists led by Theo van Doesburg in 1915-17. Here is a 1921 page from De Stijl magazine:
The Bauhaus (worthy of its own entry, of course) ran from 1919 - 1923 and was founded by the Walter Gropius. Herbert Bayer designed the "Bauhaus" typeface, and countless other great designer passed through it's doors...
László Moholy-Nagy, Title page of: "Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919-1923", 1923, Letterpress print:
Joost Schmidt, Poster for the Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, 1923, Color lithograph:
The Russian Constructivist El Lissitzky also revolutionizes typography in Two pages (poem titles) from Mayakovsky, Diya golossa (1922-23) (reproduced in Tschichold):
Tschichold and The New Typography, 1925:
And the inspiration for this, this amazing 1929 ad from the Saturday Evening Post thatamadojones posted over on vintage_ads, which clearly draws on the above with more than a little "Metropolis" mixed in:
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_sti
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.e
In the early 20th century, avant-garde artists began working to re-invent the way in which words were presented on the page, so that their arrangement became works of art themselves.
An overly simplified history of their progression in pictures...
Some of the earliest inspiration for this can be found in the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire's "Calligrammes", such as Il Pleut ("It rains"), 1916:
At the same time, the Italian Futurists were "exploding" words on the page as a visual/textual manifestation of their violently passionate manifesto, creating "Parole in Libertà", or words in freedom. F.T. Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tuum, 1912:
Dada artists were very influnced by both Apollinaire (who is arguably credited with having coined the term "surrealism") and the futurists, and played with type in their own work. A print of Hugo Ball's sound poem Karawane, 1917:
Tristan Tzara Bulletin, 1918:
In 1928, Jan Tschichold published "The New Typography" which used examples of contemporary avant-garde page layout to explain what good page design could and should be. He suggested the use of:
• Assymmetrical layout
• Use of diagonals in layout
• Designed use of white space
• Emphasis on contrasting elements
• Variation in type size but standardization of type font: rejection of serif fonts and the adoption of sans serif
Running alongside, and often in coordination with, all of this were the burgeoning German Bauhaus and Dutch De Stijl movements. De Stijl was founded by a group of artists led by Theo van Doesburg in 1915-17. Here is a 1921 page from De Stijl magazine:
The Bauhaus (worthy of its own entry, of course) ran from 1919 - 1923 and was founded by the Walter Gropius. Herbert Bayer designed the "Bauhaus" typeface, and countless other great designer passed through it's doors...
László Moholy-Nagy, Title page of: "Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar 1919-1923", 1923, Letterpress print:
Joost Schmidt, Poster for the Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, 1923, Color lithograph:
The Russian Constructivist El Lissitzky also revolutionizes typography in Two pages (poem titles) from Mayakovsky, Diya golossa (1922-23) (reproduced in Tschichold):
Tschichold and The New Typography, 1925:
And the inspiration for this, this amazing 1929 ad from the Saturday Evening Post that
amadojones posted over on vintage_ads, which clearly draws on the above with more than a little "Metropolis" mixed in:Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_sti
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.e
