Jan Tschichold
Born in 1902, Jan Tschichold, commonly known as Ivan Tschichold, was a key designer from the Modernist design movement around the Second World War in the mid 1900’s. He played a crucial role in the development of visual arts and graphic design throughout his lifetime and is well-known for his work with typography as well as calligraphy and book design, his most notable recognition is the work he did for the Penguin Book publications in helping them create and develop a brand identity which was a term that had only just made an appearance at the time. In addition to his work in developing corporate identities, Tschichold also created the typeface Sabon.[1]
Jan Tschichold did not always place his focus on typography for the modern world, in his early life he worked with a lot of calligraphy, sign making and printing alongside his father, this was until he visited the Bauhaus Exhibition in Weimar, Germany in 1923. The visit to the Exhibition allowed him to be introduced to influential figures from the Bauhaus design movement such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, this led him to look at typography in a more modern way and use it as a form of communication. After this Jan Tschichold placed an emphasis on typography and The New Typography movement where he began to focus on more modernist principles.[2] Half a decade later in 1928, Tschichold went on to release his book Die Neue Typographie or The New Typography which was a book stating the development of typography and how it should be used in the modern world, these were similar principles to that of the Bauhaus movement as Tschichold was inspired by the ideas and philosophies behind it. Tschichold is famous for introducing the Canons of Page Construction which is a design system commonly used in book design and composition design, this is a system that has heavily influenced a grid system I often use in a lot of personal projects of mine, the Golden Canon Grid.[1]
I have included some of Jan Tschichold’s work below to illustrate his influence in typography and his use of modernist principles.
References & Sources
- Wikipedia. 2021. Jan Tschichold – Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tschichold.
- Dominic Flask. 2021. Jan Tschichold : Design Is History. Available at: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/jan-tschichold/.