(Source: currentinspiration)
(via dergestaltingenieur)
(Source: puretypography, via puretypography)
(via dergestaltingenieur)
“Typography is not an independent Art: it is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It must always be subservient to the text in which is its ‘raison d’etre’…”
—Herbert Spencer
“The notion that typography in order to be contemporary must have an experimental character is misleading, even grotesque. The typographer must learn to distinguish between good and bad, meaningful and unmeaningful, disciplined and licentious typography. He has to make his decision with the reader in mind and in the best interest of the reader, who as the final link in the chain determines the value or lack of value of a printed piece by being attracted by it, by reading it, or by passing it unmoved and throwing it into the always present wastepaper basket.”
—Max Caflisch
“Photographic typesetting will bring about a new wave. It will free typography and make it more dynamic and versatile, as contrasted with traditional composition technique which could move type only vertically and horizontally. All technical limitations and inhibitions will tumble…
“There will be new forms and rules. It will be even more difficult to mast a good typography, that beautiful yet demanding art, which is limited by the metal nature of type. Only very good typographers will master those new possibilities, and even they will have difficulty in showing restraint. Beginners will find themselves completed entangled.”
—Franz Hottenroth
“Typography is to printing as elocution and dramatics are to the spoken word.”
—Anatol Rapoport
“The handwritten letter is being increased by typewritten communications, even in the sector of personal exchanges of ideas and feelings. It can be expected that this development, too, will exert an influence on the methods of teaching letterforms in schools (the elimination of writing utensils, the introductions of typing beginning with the first grade).
—Armin Hofmann
“The aim of typography must not be expression, least of all self-expression, but perfect communication achieved by skill. Taking over working principles from previous times or other typographers is not wrong but sensible. Typography is a servant and nothing more. The servant typography ought to be the most perfect servant.
“Our needs change slightly. Our eyes, however, do not change. They are still the same organ as Garamond had. As printed matter sometimes (we hope, in the most deserving cases) survives its originators and what we plan today may be read two hundred years hence, just as we can read books printed three hundred years ago, typography must not change very much. Essentially dependent on the shape of letters, it is an example of genuine tradition. Probably nowhere else is so little change noticeable and necessary as in typography.”
—Jan Tschichold
Emigre 57: Lost Formats Preservation Society – Experimental Jetset
Example of clean, modern, swiss inspired design in modern publications. Use of typefaces and clear grid structure to create this bold piece of graphic design.
“We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.
Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.
Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.
There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.
In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.”
The aim is to stimulate discussion in all areas of visual communication – in education, in practice, in the organisations that represent design’s aspirations and aims – as well as outside design. The changing relationship of advertising, graphic design, commerce and culture poses some profound questions and dilemmas that have recently been overlooked. If anything, these developments are accepted as an unproblematic fait accompli.
In consequence, many young designers have little conception of the values, ideals and sense of responsibility that once shaped the growth and practice of design. The profession’s senior figures, who do, are for the most part quiet. Adbusters’ welcome initiative reasserts these considerations as fundamental to any sensitive interpretation of graphic design’s role and potential.