These are my final three layouts. This project taught us about how to place typography on a page in order to understand hierarchy, not centering everything, and how to place type so it is legible. Something that was unique to this project was simplicity. The directions that we were given led us to only have a few elements at our disposal to create our spreads. This allowed us to stray away from complex designs and focus on the basics. 

The project was to design a book cover for Ruari McLean’s book “Jan Tshicold A Life In Typography 1902-1972”. In real life, the cover of the book is very simple with only words and small graphics that are not for decoration, but to emphasize certain terms. This was also something we learned during this project. There is a difference between design used for decoration and for it actual having a purpose.  

I really improved from the beginning stages. I really think that I learned a lot from this project and that it shows in my improvements. I think this project was difficult because I had to use only simple elements to create my design. I also really dislike using the grid so this project was a struggle for me. I enjoyed using the grid to challenge me, but with my personal work I hate using the grid.

I worked really hard on this project and tried to focus on the goals of the different steps.

Phase Two gave us a new set of guidelines. The size had to be 7x10 inches, 5 column grid, All type had to lock up into the upper left or bottom left corner, we could use any two weights or styles of Univers, any three type sizes, and had to keep our text horizontal. 

Alive Designers

Erik Spiekermann was born in 1947 and is a German typographer. He ran a letterpress printing press in the basement of his house. Him and two other partners cofounded MetaDesign which is an international design consultancy that deals with branding. Spiekermann and his wife created FontShop, which was the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts. He has also designed many typefaces. 

Matthew Carter was born in 1937 and is an English typographer. He is famous for designing fonts like Verdana and Georgia. Along with the rest of the design world, he witnessed the change from physical metal type to digital type. A logo that he created in 1962 for a British magazine called “Private Eye” is still used today. Carter cofounded Bitstream which was one of the first digital type foundries. 

Stefan Sagmeister was born in 1962 and is an Austrian typographer. He has designed for the Rolling Stones, HBO, the Geggenheim Museum, and Time Warner. Around every seven years he takes a year long break where he does not take work from clients. He dedicates 25% of his work to the art world, 25% to the scientific community, 25% to social causes, and the remaining 25% to the music industry. He has work shown in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Japan, Osaka, Prague, Cologne, and Seoul. Sagmeister teaches in the School of Visual Arts’ graduate department in New York.

Dead Designers

Piet Zwart was a Dutch designer. He was born in 1885 in North Holland. He actually was taught how to be an architect but sparked an interest in graphic design when he was 36. Since he had this architectural background, his design was very functional. He began to play around with typography. He felt that the 20th century’s need for typography because a cultural force that he felt obligated to contribute to. His work includes primary colors, geometrical shapes, and repeated patterns.

Paul Rand was born in New York in 1914. He used a Swiss style. He was a graphic design professor at Yale University. Since his father did not think art could provide a sufficient living, Rand was very much self taught. He designed many corporate identities that are still used today for IBM, ABC, Cummins Engine, and UPS. Rand was taught at Parsons The New School for Design and the Art Students League of New York.

Max Bill was born in Winterthur in 1908. He studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927-1929. After, he moved to Zurich. His first big work was his own house and studio which he built thee. His work was considered progressive. He designed many public sculptures in Europe and has exhibitions in many galleries and museums. Not only was he a designer but he was elected to the Zurich municipal council in 1961. 

The next phase was to move what we had cut out and pasted onto the computer. Since designers final product is usually from the computer, this made sense that it would be our next step. It also looks a lot nicer than just cutting and pasting something. This still helped us to achieve a sense of hierarchy, learn how to use the grid, and learn how to transfer ideas from paper to the computer. Here are some exampes of what I created.

Who is Adrian Frutiger?

He was born in 1928 in Switzerland. He worked as a typeface designer at Deberny & Peignot in Paris. He created Univers and Frutiger typefaces. Even as a child he experimented with his handwriting instead of using the strict cursive penmanship that Swiss schools required. He studied at the school of applied arts in Zurich (Kunstgewerbeschule) where he primarily focused on calligraphy. He went on to create many typefaces such as Versailles. In 2009 he was put in the European Design Hall of Fame. He is relevant to this project because he created Univers which is the font that we are using. 

Cut/Tape Explorations

This part of the project was to print off 15 grids and a few sets of words in different styles of a font. We were then to cut out the words and paste them onto the grids. This project helped us to better understand how to work with a grid, use hierarchy, and be familiar with how text should be placed on a page. It was interesting to be able to explore so many different solutions. Here are some scanned in versions of what I accomplished.

Who is Jan Tschichold?

Jan was born in Germany in 1902. He taught illustration at age 14. He is a typographer who was trained in the art of calligraphy which set him aside from others of his time. Because he and his wife were arrested due to the Nazis believing that he was working with communists, he had to escape to Switzerland. He lived there for the rest of his life. His work was very modernist and he became a leading advocate of modernist design because of his 1925 magazine supplement and a 1927 personal exhibition. His most noted work is Die neue Typographie. Here he condemned all typefaces except for sans-serif. He disliked centered design. He helped to standardize paper sizes and understood how different sizes and weights of paper effected the end product. 

In 1932 he slowly moved to more Classicism ideals in design. This was because he thought modernist design was too authoritarian. He also designed a universal alphabet. Tschichold designed Transit, Saskia, Zeus, and Sabon. He spent time with Penguin Books where he created a standardized method for their covers. He also established a type hierarchy. Many people loved his views on design, but there were people who disagreed greatly with him. No matter how the people felt, everyone knew of him. 

He redesigned around 500 books at penguin. After retiring from penguin, he wrote another book titled Arbitrary Measurement Relations of the Book Page. He also released “Master Book of Typefaces”. He sadly died in August of 1974. He will forever be remembered because of his clever ideas and contributions to design.