Typographic

Jan Tschihold

Jenna Hammond

Andrea Herstowski

VISC 202

26 August 2015

Jan Tschichold

            Jan Tschichold, a German typographer and author played a great role in developing 20^th century graphic design and typography. His work shows attention to detail and also has a great emphasis on lasting communication. Jan is one of the most defining voices because of his strong ideological stances. Not only was he trained as a designer, but a calligrapher at the Leipzig Academy of Graphic Arts and Book production from 1919 to 1921. Two years later he was hired at a printing firm drawing exact page layouts to be executed by typesetters.

Jan later became a professor at a technical college for German printers in Berlin, which was headed by Paul Renner. While he lived in Berlin, he also fled to Switzerland to become a book designer after being arrested by Nazis. Starting from 1947 to 1949 he was the typographic designer for the well-known Penguin Books in London, designing over 500 title pages and specified how future typography for the series paperbacks. He also designed many books for both Swiss and German Publishers and his work and writings helped spread modernist graphic designs in many areas around the world.

Jan’s work was made to represent the rationalism of the modern age, to be functional, and of course to be aesthetically pleasing. While Tschichold was well known for typography he strongly advocated the beauty of the fonts Sans Serif and organized design 20 years before it took off.  He was greatly inspired by one of the first fonts of Rudolf Kach, Maximillian Grotesk, a very dark German font. Jan Tschichold was a very inspirational designer, giving many talks around the world and winning many awards and recognition.