Discourse 2 – on "The New Typography" by Jan Tschichold

Information from the section: “The Essence of New Typography is Clarity”

* Old typography was designed for beauty more than clarity
* It was designed differently because people of that time had different needs
* They had time to read slower, so they didn’t need to be as concerned with clarity for the sake of speedy easy communication like we do in the modern world
* In old typography, arranging all the text on a central axis had a higher priority than the arrangement of individual units
* Form of type sizes was more important than expressing logical order that is important to modern typography.
* To New Typography, it is wrong to arrange text for a preconceived idea or form, like, for example, axial arrangement of a text as if there was a focal point in the center of a line. Also, New Typography is against the preconceived ideas of pseudo constructivists.
* The objective of New Typography is to develop visible form out of the functions of the text.
* In both nature and technology, form grows out of function (purpose), materials used (organic or technical).
* Text usually reads top left to bottom right, but it can be arranged other ways.
* Willi Baumeister’s invitation card is an example of an exception to conventional text arrangement.
* Generally, it’s better not to set a following body of text higher than the preceding body of text. This will ensure the text has a logical sequence and order.
* Asymmetry can be created through unusual text placement (make sure it still reads in a logical order, though).
* Asymmetry creates a different rhythm than symmetrical typography.
* Asymmetry can be more logical depending on how it’s arranged.
* It can also be a lot more optically effective than symmetrical arrangement.
* It can create movement, but it must not create chaos and unrest
* It provides a much broader range of possible variation in New Typography
* Asymmetry expresses diversity of modern life

* New typography encouraged standardization in units but allows much more flexibility in design than old typography.
* Old typography allowed all possible construction elements but only recognized the central axis arrangement as the design of the overall form. Essentially, it is the opposite of New Typography in this way.
* Functional design requires abolition of “ornamentation” of old typography and reliance purely on design.
* Reliance on ornamentation shows fear of pure design and pure appearance and not design maturity.
* The thick/thin rule is an ornament and should be avoided
* The New Typography does emphasize contrasts and uses them to create a new unity.
* “abstract decorations” are ornaments in the same way old typography floral ornamentation was.
* New Typography has nothing to do with pictorial typesetting and it should be avoided.
* New Typography uses different type-sizes, weights, placing in relation to space, color, etc, to create logical organization that leads the eye from one word or group of words to the next
* Bigger differences in typographic weight are better than smaller differences because it is more apparent.
* It’s better to limit the number of type sizes used. Usually it’s better not to use more than three to five.
* Headlines should be bigger than the remaining text
* All contrasts should be logical
* Form should correspond with meaning, not contradict it
* White space is very important to asymmetric design
* Strong contrast between white and black and the form of type or rules emphasizes the white areas and assists the total effect
* It is wrong to decide the shape or area of the white before the text is compressed into it. White space is not more important than the words of the text.
* New Typography usually has much smaller margins than Old Typography for effectiveness and clarity of the relationship between black and white.
* Small items of text usually have margins of 12 to 24 points minimum
* Posters usually have a minimum of 48 point margins
* Borders of solid red or black can be taken almost right up to the edge of the text.
* Blocks can bleed off the page if the trim is accurate
* New Typography uses color functionally
* Old typography used color decoratively
* Physiological effects of colors can be used to increase or decrease importance and the attention drawn to text or other visual objects
* White appears like reflecting light and shines
* Red comes forward and seems closest out of any color
* Black is densest and seems farthest away
* Yellow is close to red
* Blue is close to black
* Literary definitions of color are not used (e.g.: red = love)

Section: “Type”

* Sanserif (grotesques) or block letters (skeleton letters) are the only ones suitable to New Typography
* Sanserifs aren’t perfected as all-purpose fonts. They still have too much of a humanistic style
* Jobbing sanserifs like ones from baur & co, in Stuttgart are the most suitable because they have a quiet line and functionalism
* Second best is venus and its copies
* 3rd place is malerischen block letters
* out of the roman types, bold romans like aldine and bold Egyptians are best for types used for emphasis
* old decorative fonts can occasionally find use in some cases (such as parody), but should not be used where they aren’t comfortable. They have to be excluded as a basic typeface for contemporary work
* the author claims roman type is the international typeface of the future
* artistic typefaces are even worse than old typefaces.
* Their individual nature makes them unsuitable for designing print in the modern spirit of today.
* Classic typefaces like walbaum, didot, and odoni can’t be primary all purpose types today because they have romantic association that would divert the reader’s attention to emotional and intellectual spheres that belong to a past we have no connection to
* Currently, the best types to use are sanserifs, but if a roman type has to be used, the best pre-war designed typefaces are ones like Sorbonne and nordische antiqua.
* They are good because they are legible, free from idiosyncrasies, and technically useful.

Section: “Expressiveness of type”

* Gothic type (textura) and sanserif do not express “spiritual content”
* Many people mistakenly believe gothic type is a good way to express peace, solemnity, and religion
* Many also think that italic expresses cheerfulness and joy.
* In reality, in the time period when gothic types were used, only one or two typefaces were used and they were used for everything in general, both religious and profane, both joyous and morose, not the things people associate them with.
* Gothic types express gothic, not religion.
* Rococo expresses the Rococo, not joy.
* Sanserif does not express lack of feeling, just the 20th century
* Good typefaces are never designed to express emotions. They only differ in different times because of changing conceptions of what is a good typeface
* Our age requires clarity and truth, so we must use types that reject the superfluous.

Section: “Orthography as at present or all in lower case?”

* Roman type and sanserifs in use today include different faces that were combined from two alphabets in the 15th century.
* The alphabet of capital letters (called majuscules) was created by old Romans as a form and was shaped by chisels.
* The lower case alphabet (called miniscules) comes from the time of emperor Charlemagne around 800 A.D. They were written with a pen and had ascenders and descenders
* In the Renaissance period, the lowercase and capitcal alphabets were combined to create the “Antiqua” (AKA roman) alphabet.
* The German language uses capitals much more often than most other languages, which makes type settings look less visually appealing when set in German.
* There have been efforts to abolish capital letters for nouns to make German writing conform with international style.
* In the Baroque period, nouns had to be signaled with capitals, but this practice isn’t useful anymore.
* Rules about the use of capitals increase difficulty of learning and teaching in school.
* 100 years ago, Jakob Grimm advocated following the example of Old and Middle High German literature where capitals were only used for proper names and the beginning of sentences. German scholars have followed his example.
* Some people in France have started using capitals and lowercase independently for text and headings instead of mixing them together.
* Instead of accepting either of these solutions, The New Typography would rather discontinue the use of capitals in favor of lowercase because it’s easier to read and recognize each character.
* A one-type system would greatly benefit efficiency and economy of almost everything and give an aesthetically, scientifically, and systematically better lettering system.
* It would also be beneficial to eliminate unnecessary letters like z, q, and c and have signs specifically for sch, ch, and dg.