Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold was an typographic advisor and designer. He defined the new typography.
For his 70th birthday he wrote his own tribute in the third person. It began: ''Two men stand out as the most powerful influences on 20th century typography: Stanley Morison, who died in 1967, and Jan Tschichold.''

   Jan was naturally put in the print industry because of the family from which he came but he was very curious about new ''isms'' in art. He latter came away from the Bauhaus exhibition and soon after that he was chief propagandist for the new movement in typography, crossing Europe. He was trying to connect the new typography to the ''total complex of contemporary life''. The book set some things in stone: the use of sans-serif fonts, asymmetrical rather than centred layouts. He used geometrical elements and diagonal arrangements in every single thing. Basicly it was two-colours toned with small half-tone photographs, never rectangular, but cut-out as circles or silhouettes.

But not everyone was impressed with the new thing Tschichold brought. The Nazi were very suspecious of modernism, they taught of that as ''un-German''. After he realised his book he was called as ''cultural Boshevists''. And after ten days they put him in prison. 

   But after all that Penguin transformed his book as ''good book cheap'' and sold it in three million copies. His examinations of book proportions are critical histories of lettering and typefaces, and the elegance of his book design, are on the shelves in advertising agencies and design studios. And at this site is explained how each letter should look for him: http://www.tschichold.de/.

References:

 Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . 2013. Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/05/jan-tschichold-typography. [Accessed 25 November 2013].