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Rating: 
Summary: Mr Gerstner and the true meaning of Akzidenz Grotesk.
Review: I first be came aware of the work of Karl Gerstner while at art college in the late Fifties. I bought a copy of his first book 'Cold Art?', written in German, so I couldn't read it but I could follow the excellent analytical diagrams explaining the basis of mathematical abstracts as produced by Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Max Bill, Richard P Lohse, Gerstner and others. Thirteen pages of 'Cold Art' and spreads from his other books are also shown in this beautiful book of Gerstner's career. His creative work from the fifties and sixties always used the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk (Standard Medium in English speaking countries) for text and headlines, despite, as he says, there being no italic. To make this type more complete he redesigned it as Gerstner Program and his work on this and another of his faces, IBM Original is explained in detail in the book. His books, publication design, typefaces, logos, ads, packaging and thoughts on design and related areas of creativity are well presented throughout the book. I especially liked the last few pages which have some examples of his amazing computer generated art (in spreads from the Swiss magazine Basler Magazin) and this is why I find Gerstner so interesting, his graphic work covers such a wide area and interestingly, in the book, he also provides an intellectual underpinning of his creativity. BTW the same publisher has produced a book devoted to Gerstner's paintings, graphics and computer art (ISBN 3775791515).
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