I recently began reading Jan Tschichold’s manifesto on type, The New Typography. I have been teaching graphic design history for quite some time but have never before made the time to actually read this text. I took the time to do so now for some research I am currently conducting on historical influences to modern information graphic design, and now I regret having put off reading it for so long.

The surprising thing about the text is how relevant some of Tschichold’s arguments for setting and standardizing text really are, even today, as you must remember the text was originally published in 1928. Now I am not advocating for the standardization of type treatments, but I do feel that design students would benefit greatly from reading his arguments to better understand the development of the ideals for The New Typography movement but also to help them to make and understand the type choices that they make on a day-to-day basis.

There is a lot of interesting information in this text but I believe that the chapter that might interest students the most is the point when Tschichold begins outlining his theories on The New Typography in the chapter titled “The Principles of The New Typography“. This chapter explains Tschichold’s position on The New Typography and why it works so much better than the “old typography”. He explains that the biggest reason for this need to restyle how type is handled is that clarity should now reign over beauty.

One of the important things to remember while reading this text, as riveting as it is, is that Jan Tschichold later recanted his demand for strict clarity in design and even encouraged designers to return to a more humanist approach. He even went so far as to state that the New Typography had an “impatient attitude conforms to the German bent for the absolute, and its military will to regulate and its claim to absolute power reflect those fearful components of the German character [that] set loose Hitler’s power and the Second World War.” This is a very powerful statement coming from someone that was so harassed by the Nazi regime that he was forced to flee the country, relocating his family to Switzerland.

I hope that with these new insights students will actually take the time to read Tschichold’s seminal work which, along with the other Avant Garde movements of the early twentieth century, inspired a new direction and a new way of looking at typography.

Sources

Meggs, P. & Purvis, A. (2011). Meggs’ History of Graphic Design (5th Ed.). New York, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Tschichold, J. (2006). The New Typography. Berkeley & Los Angles, California: University of California Press.

For my Design Foundations II students, the due date of our first project is rapidly approaching and I would like to share some tips, techniques and resources with you in order to help with your craft and presentation skills.

First, when I say the word craft I am referring to how well your project is put together and it’s overall polished appearance. The goal is for it look pristine and perfect, almost as if it was computer generated, even though we know that in the Design Foundations classes at UCO all projects are done by hand. So make sure that you remove any extra pencil marks and glue. Remember to give yourself enough time to complete the project so that if you mess up, say spill glue all over your work or smear the ink, you will have time to start over. That is a key element: Remember that if you mess up and it can’t be fixed to START OVER. Don’t turn in sloppy work, you will be deducted points for it. If you were to submit sloppy work to a client they would most definitely fire you, so start practicing this now!

Also, remember that you will be presenting your work so my best advice here is to practice your presentation before you give it. Try doing this in front of a mirror or give your presentation to friends or family. Also plan and even write down what you are going to say beforehand, don’t wing it, this never works out as well as you might think! Writing down your presentation can be as simple as creating an outline and giving yourself a few talking points or you might decided to script out the whole thing. Figure out which works best for you and then stick with it.

Here are some more resources you will need for crafting your final comp:
How to use an exacto(Courtesy of How to Architect)
Rubber Cement (Courtesy of Larry Hefner)
Flapping your work (Courtesy of Larry Hefner)

There are quite a few students who are in the middle of completing their research for History of Graphic Design Papers. It is important to consider what resources to use when conducting research. Resources can be in more traditional printed formats such as books and journals but there are also a wide variety of internet resources available now. Internet resources can include online journals or magazines, educational websites, online encyclopedias (we will discuss Wikipedia in a moment); what is important to consider when looking at any resource is its validity, usefulness and accuracy.

Validity is generally of higher concern for internet resources than for published and printed material (but don’t assume that it is valid just because its printed!), this is because essentially anyone can publish information on the internet. More traditional printed resources meanwhile typically go through a rigorous editing process where they are reviewed on multiple levels and are assessed by fact checkers. But again invalid resources are printed and do slip by the watchful eyes of publishing companies, examples include A Million Little Pieces by James Frey and Imagine by Jonah Lehrer.

Wikipedia is a resource that students, and myself, often turn to when they hear about something new, or want to quickly inform themselves about a topic. It is a wonderful tool for instances such as this but should not be looked at as a valid resource at this time. This is because in its essence Wikipedia is still a wiki and anyone who has access to the internet can upload information to this site. Wikipedia is making valid efforts to fact check all of its data, but this is a very large task due the the boundless information that is available on the site.

Don’t forget about other non-traditional resources such as personal blogs and documentaries. Again you have to look at these resources for their validity. A personal blog could be considered a resource in research the individual who posts it. Documentaries can also be valuable in terms of research as long the the creator is reputable.

When researching a specific topic don’t forget to look and general information resources such as the Meggs’ History of Graphic Design book. Remember that not all topics will have a book dedicated entirely to them and you might have to do some more digging to find information about the subject, but this doesn’t mean the topic isn’t of interest or that you should chose something else to research!