24/02/09 – Industrial British Columbia 1946: Canada’s magnificent new industrial empire, geared to efficient high quality production, backed by an adequate pool of skilled labor promotional catalogue. Designed and lithographed by The Sun Publishing Company Limited, Vancouver, B. C. Copyright May 15, 1947. Spiral bound 14″ x 10″ with 46 pages. (more…)
18/02/09 – Excerpts from Armin Hofmann’s Graphic Design Manual: Principles and Practice published in 1965.
Introduction
“What is lacking is a creative focus which would be the source of every new insight into the nature of art and would foster every kind of talent.” (37)
“It is only in in drawing, which occupies an isolated and underprivileged position in the curriculum, that thinking, inventing, representing, transposing and abstracting can be correlated.” (ibid.)
“It is a fairly general assumption that art training is autonomous and subject only to its own laws. It is precisely this error which has induced me to preface my consideration of the problems of art education with some thoughts on education in general with a view to showing the close interdependence of the various aims of education.” (ibid.) (more…)
29/01/09 – PIE books, Japan: Cesky Filumenisticky Design (2005) and Japanese Matchbox Label Collection 1920s-40s (2004). Text in Japanese. Maraid’s matchbox labels on flickr//
24/06/08 – Select excerpts and notes from Laurent Pflughaupt’s Letter by Letter:
Introduction
“Tracing back through the history of these abstract signs, which we manipulate and decipher unconsciously on a daily basis, is often like discovering their hidden or forgotten meanings. We find that today we still use capital letters whose structures are identical to the engraved capitals that date from the beginning of this era. We also discover that the design of our printed letters is based on Carolingian lowercase letters, which were rehabilitated and perfected seven centuries later by Florentine humanists.” (9) (more…)
18/05/08 – A selection of excerpts and principles from Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style [Part 1 of 2]:
Foreword
“But when I set myself to compile a simple list of working principles, one of the benchmarks I first thought of was William Strunk and E.B. White’s small masterpiece, The Elements of Style.” (9)
“But the underlying principles of typography are, at any rate, stable enough to weather any number of human fashions and fads.” (10)
“The essential elements of style have more to do with the goals typographers set for themselves than with the mutable eccentricities of their tools.” (ibid.)
I THE GRAND DESIGN
1.1 First Principles
1.1.1 Typography exists to honor content.
“Typography with anything to say therefore aspires to a kind of statuesque transparency. Its other traditional goal is durability: not immunity to change, but a clear superiority to fashion.” (17) (more…)
13/04/08 – Excerpts from Alan Bartram’s Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text published 2005 by Yale University Press:
Introduction
“The Italian Futurist poet-typographers were literary people, as were the very different Russian artists; and, just as for the 1960s protest designers, content came first and created form. Aesthetics merely refined the design.” (7)
“An ability to use a computer makes no one a typographer, and provides no substitute for the fiery imagination adn visual sensibility possessed by Marinetti. His ‘new array of type’ transformed the very grammar and syntax of the sentence, created a unique poetry, a new mode of communication.” (8)
“[...]at least one noteable precendent, the original 1897 version of Stephane Mallarme’s Un Coup de des. And, about the same time Marinetti’s work was published, Apollinaire was experimenting with his calligrammes.” (ibid.) (more…)
Excerpts from Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Visual Communication Manual for Graphic Designers, Typographers and Three Dimensional Designers first published in 1981:
Foreword
Modern typography is based primarily on the theories and principles of design evolved in the 20′s and 30′s of our century. It was Mallarmé and Rimbaud in the 19th century and Apollinaire in the early 20th century who paved the way to a new understanding of the possibilities inherent in typography and who, released from conventional prejudices and fetters, created through their experiments the basis for the pioneer achievements of the theoreticians and practitioners that followed. (7)
The principle of the grid system presented in this book was developed and used in Switzerland after World War II. (ibid.)
But there was no publication that showed how the grid was constructed and applied, let alone how the design of the grid system was to be learned. This book is an attempt to close the gap. (8) (more…)
14/03/08 – Excerpts from Emil Ruder’s Typographie first published 1967:
Introduction
There are two essential aspects to the work of the typographer: he must take into account knowledge already acquired and keep his mind receptive to novelty. (5)
There must be no letting up in the determination to produce vital work reflecting the spirit of the times; doubt and perturbation are good antidotes against the tendency to follow the line of least resistance. (ibid.)
It is the intention of this book to bring home to the typographer that perhaps it is precisely the restrictions of the means at his disposal and the practical aims he has to fulfill that make the charm of his craft. (ibid.)
Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty. A printed work which cannot be read becomes a product without purpose. (6)
He [i.e., the typographer] is not free to make his own independent decisions; he must depend on what went beforehand and take into account what is to come. (8)
But the typographer does possess this ability to stand back from the work, and it is very useful to him in his craft since critical distance is a virtue in a typographer. The typographer must be able to take the impersonal view; wilful individuality and emotion have little place in this work. (ibid.)
The many active contacts between people from every country today leave no scope for type faces with a pronounced national character. (10)
The craft of the typographer, like any other, necessarily reflects the times. The age gives him the means with which to satisfy the needs the age creates. (12)
The creative worker, on the other hand, spares little thought for contemporary style, for he realizes that style is not somethign that can be deliberately created; it comes all unawares! (ibid.)
More than graphic design, typography is an expression of technology, precision and good order. (14) (more…)
Excerpts from Jan Tschichold’s Die neue Typographie (1928):
Introduction
“The ‘form’ of the New Typography is also a spiritual expression of our world-view. It is necessary therefore first of all to learn how to understand its principles, if one wishes to judge them correctly or oneself design within their spirit.” (7)
“The illustrations in this book, with few exceptions examples of practical work, prove that the concepts of the New Typography, in use, allow us for the first time to meet the demands of our age for purity, clarity, fitness for purpose, and totality.” (ibid.)
“Modern man, whose vision of the world is collective-total, no longer individual-specialist, needs no special reminder of the rightness of being closely aware of such related activities as modern painting and photography. I therefore thought it desirable to say something more about this new way of viewing our world, in which our spiritual conception of the new forms are linked with the whole range of human activity.” (8)
Growth and Nature of the New Typography
a) The new world view:
“Construction is the basis of all organic and organized form: the structure and form of a rose are no less logical than the construction of a racing car –both appeal to us for the ultimate economy and precision. Thus the striving for purity of form is the common denominator of all endeavour that has set itself the aim of rebuilding our life and forms of expression. In every individual activity we recognize the single way, the goal: Unity of Life!” (13)
“Typography too must now make itself part of all the other fields of creativity. The purpose of this book is to show these connections and explain their consequences, to state clearly the principles of typography, and to demand the creation of a contemporary style.” (ibid.) (more…)
08/02/08 – Josef Lada’s calendar illustrations from the 1940s featuring traditional Czech occupations, pastimes and holiday scenes. (Unfortunately, February is missing.) (more…)
10/10/07 – “While Richard Saul Wurman is credited with the term ‘information architect,’ Sutnar was one of the Modern pioneers. Sutnar contributed a no-nonsense structure to how graphical information could be presented…” -Steven Heller
Czech designer, Ladislav Sutnar (1897-1976), is considered a pioneer of communication design and information architecture. His vast and varied output ranges from graphic works including all manner of book covers, pamphlets, and corporate letterhead to orientation systems in large department stores; from tea sets to oil paintings; from children’s toys and books to visual flow diagrams based on research into optics and psychology.
He worked as an academic and graphic designer in Czechoslovakia until 1938 when he traveled to the United States to work on the Czecho-Slovak Pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City. While working there, war broke out in Europe effectively leaving him stranded in the United States. (more…)
22/09/07 – Excerpts from The Elements of Color: A Treatise on the Color System of Johannes Itten Based on his Book ‘The Art of Color’:
In the realm of aesthetics, are there general rules and laws of color for the artist, or is the aesthetic appreciation of colors governed solely by subjective opinion? Students often ask this question, and my answer is always the same: ‘If you, unknowing, are able to create masterpieces in color, then un-knowledge is your way. But if you are unable to create masterpieces in color out of your unknowledge, then you ought to look for knowledge.’ ( 7)
Doctrines and theories are best for weaker moments. In moments of strength, problems are solved intuitively, as if of themselves. (ibid.)
Knowledge of the laws of design need not imprison, it can liberate from indecision and vacillating perception. (8)
As the tortoise draws its limbs into its shell at need, so the artist reserves his scientific principles when working intuitively. (ibid.)
Color is life; for a world without colors appears to us as dead. […] Light, that first phenomenon of the world, reveals to us the spirit and living soul of the world through colors. (ibid.) (more…)