Sunday, 26 January 2014

New Typography Movement

The new typographic style started in the 1920s and 1930s, the so-called New Typography movement was a main factor and contributed graphic design and informational art of the artistic avant-garde in Central Europe.

El Lisstzky, a main figure in the constructivist artist played a major role and was considered a key figure in the development of the New Typography movement, he was one of the first designers to abandon the classical rules of typography and made use of  asymmetrical layouts, geometric shapes, a limited range of colours, and sans serif letter-forms.   He's considered the first person to apply modern art techniques to typography.   Lisstzky's principles will influence Maholy-Nagy and applied these graphic principles to the Bauhaus.

The main principles and characteristics of the New typographic style was a rejection to traditional arrangement of type in symmetrical columns, t designers started to organize the page or poster as a blank field in which blocks of type and illustration (frequently photomontage) could be arranged in harmonious, strikingly asymmetrical compositions. 
Contents in their designs would be arranged according to hierarchy.
Intentional use of white space was also evident and one of the main factors of the style.
Typefaces were strictly Sans Serif to accompany the geometric nature of the modernist philosophy. These new principles were important factors for paper size standardisation.
The new typographic style main artist included Jan Tschichold, Max Bayer, Ladislav Sutnar, Kurt Shwitters and Piet Zwart.

zwart1

bayer2





tschihold1

sutnar2

schwit1
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Jan Tschichold was a crucial figure of the new typographic style and in 1928he published his book, 'Die Neue Typographie' (German for "The New Typography). He aimed to make guidelines for a new era of typography in a time were the emphasis was on beauty and aesthetics Tschichold wanted to move away and change the traditional notions and introduced the principle of clarity and functionality. These guidelines helped with attaining clear, functional, and simplistic type that would also enhance the legibility of printed literature. Tschichold new guideline provided functional typography and its methods were quickly adopted be many printers and designers. This is when the New Typography movement really began to take off.
Jan Tschichold was responsible in creating new fonts in the mid early 20th century and the most famous typefaces he designed include
Typefaces Tschichold designed include: ‘Transit ‘(1931), ‘Saskia’(1931/1932), ‘Zeus’ (1931) and Sabon (1966/1967)


File:Sabon.png




The New Typography movement provided a much needed overhaul to typographic techniques in an age when new technology easily allowed typographers to experiment and adopt new approaches to arrange type on a page.  “Die Neue Typographie” by Jan Tschichold was the essential guideline that quickly caught on and helped birth a new era of typography.




References





The Thames and Hudson
 Dictionary of Graphic design and Designers
1992-98 Thames and Hudson Ltd, London UK


All accessed 22/1/2014 1400

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