Description:
Jan Tschichold's design breakthroughs in typography were two fold. He was the first typographer to apply the aesthetics, in his day, of the Bauhaus to ordinary, day-to-day printing. Secondly, his great flexibility of vision allowed him to relinquish those design principles of asymmetry and articulate a wider vision after his exile from Nazi Germany. The Bauhaus had a tendency, after all, to use type as an element of abstract art, and Tschichold would never be swayed from his conviction that typographical design must serve communication. He would incorporate the dash and elegance of Bauhaus form, but never sacrifice legibility for flair. Function, in his case, would always follow form. His aesthetic, however, was indelible. With his early training in lettering and calligraphy, Tschichold "... became the first to offer a coherent philosophy of design by which all typographic problems ... could be tackled in ways that were rational, suited to modern production techniques, and aesthetically satisfying." Jan Tschichold: A Life in Typography offers both the design student and the experienced designer such enlightened summaries, placing the typographer's vision firmly in the rich cultural context of his times. In his concise biography Ruari McLean, the world's leading Tschichold scholar, offers an interpretation of the significant design innovations, with analyses of Tschichold's writings, theories and manifestos. A substantial as well as a handsome volume, enriched with annotated illustrations of Tschichold's work, and including the now famous series of film posters for Munich's Phoebus-Palast Cinema, Jan Tschichold is as satisfying to the eye as any of Tschichold's clean, lean designs.
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