Jenna
Hammond
Andrea
Herstowski
VISC
202
26
August 2015
Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold, a German typographer
and author played a great role in developing 20th 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.
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