Volume 16–1.pdf

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But then something happened. After
changing the typographic world, and
converting countless designers to his way
of thinking, Jan Tschichold changed his
own mind!
Actually, what Tschichold experienced was
more akin to a slow conversion than it was
to a spur of the moment change of heart.
The results, however, were no less drastic.
Why the Change
Tschichold's transformation began when
he took on commissions to design mass-
market books: textbooks, novels, historical
fiction, biographies, etc., instead of
posters and his own manuals on typography
and graphic design. These were items
produced for, and published by, conserva-
Cinema
poster,
1928.
tive-minded people. Over time this line of
work became Tschichold's main source of
income. The more books he designed, the
more he realized that one typographic
style could not answer the needs of
all typographic applications; and that
to insist the opposite was true was
roughly the equivalent of typographic
dictatorship.
Tschichold realized that good typography
has to be perfectly legible and, as such, the
choices of classical types like Garamond,
Jenson, and Baskerville are not only the
traditional choice, but also the logical
choice for most books. Typographic state-
ments from Tschichold also became much
more conservative: "Sans serif is good for
certain cases of emphasis, but is now used
to the point of abuse. The occasions for
using sans serif are as rare as those for
wearing obtrusive decorations': As for
asymmetry, Tschichold still considered it to
be the most vibrant and stimulating typo-
graphic arrangement, but he learned that
few of his peers had the talent or discipline
to use it correctly. Asymmetric typographic
arrangement still held a special attraction
for Tschichold, but he became less and less
evangelical about converting the world to
this design style.
Sadly, Tschichold became the object of
typographic ridicule simply for changing
his mind. His followers saw in his books,
articles, and teaching a way of providing
solutions to all typographic problems.
Many of them blindly set him up as their
"typographic god" —and gods fall very
hard from grace.
Followers Speak Out
One disciple, the Swiss architect and
designer, Max Bill, writing in a German
trade magazine, made the impassioned
accusation that Tschichold was a rene-
gade from his own teaching, and went on
to great lengths to show the contra-
dictions between the gospel of 1928 and
Tschichold's later work.
Making his reply some time later in the
same periodical, Tschichold sympathizes
with the disillusionment felt by his earlier
supporters, but asks, in effect, if they
would rather he suppress his enlightened
beliefs and continue to teach what he no
longer felt to be true? He then went on in
the article, in a manner typical of the kind
teacher, to produce further examples of his
contradictions: ones missed by Max Bill.
Tschichold's circumstance proves, once
again, that there is a heavy price to pay if
you are a revolutionary (especially a suc-
cessful one) and continue to seek the truth
beyond simple answers.
A Change Completed
Tschichold's new classical style was per-
fected just after World War II. In August of
1946, the founder of Penguin Books pro-
vided him the opportunity to redesign the
complete Penguin product offering. This
was to be the most extensive, and the most
difficult challenge of Tschichold's career.
At the time the publishers of Penguin
Books commissioned Tschichold, they had
been using printers scattered throughout
England to produce their books. Penguin
was not staffed for making regular visits
to these printers, nor were they able to
respond quickly to the varied typographic
problems they ran into in the regular
course of book production. As a result the
printers began to rely more and more on
their own house style (or in too many
cases, whim) to solve design and typo-
graphic problems. The books suffered. At
best they were inconsistent in design and
quality; more often, they were poor exam-
ples of typographic communication.
Immediately upon beginning his employ-
ment at Penguin, Tschichold produced a
typographic style manual: a small booklet
which began to outline the basic require-
ments he required. Tschichold recalled
that, "It was comparatively easy to per-
suade the machine compositors to observe
these rules" but that the hand compositors
"obviously understood nothing of what I
meant... " He clearly had no small task on
his hands.
One of the guidelines Tschichold sought
was the even spacing of capital letters on
title pages. (When setting metal type by
hand, this is a somewhat tedious and
difficult task of hand insertion or deletion
of spacing material —something which the
Penguin compositors preferred to save
themselves the trouble of doing.) Since
Tschichold edited the typography of every
book, he first tried to make simple sugges-
tions to improve character spacing, but
soon was forced to have a rubber stamp
made which printed "Equalize Letter
Spacing According to Their Optical Value!
This tack did not work either. Tschichold
complained that, "This stamp was practi-
cally never noticed': In frustration, he
began the tedious, and time consuming,
task of writing by hand individual instruc-
tions for every occasion that he sought
letter spacing improvement. Proof pages
were sent back to the printers littered with
phrases like, "one-half pt. in'/ or "2 pts.
out!" — and these were only the notes
pertaining to character spacing!
Tschichold edited every page of every
book that Penguin produced. At first,
pages were sent back to printers with
more red than black ink! Gradually, how-
ever, the printers began to understand
Tschichold's requirements and book qual-
ity improved.
After he was satisfied that his most basic of
composition rules for book production
"...had been settled and duly propagated,"