Who is Jan Tschichold?

"There can be neither a genuinely new, nor a 'reactionary' typography, but only good or bad typography."

Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold is one of the best known publicist and practitioners of the 'new typography,' which was developed in Europe between the wars. Born in Leipzig, Germany to a sign-writer father, Tschichold was trained in calligraphy and his first interest was antiquarian lettering.

After being exposed to the Bauhaus, his style changed in 1923, and Tschichold now considered structure and function. Jan began promoting new typography in printing trade journals and a series of manuals. This new typography was in favor of asymmetry and bold sans serifs typefaces,and Tschichold was a leading advocate in this modernist design. In 1927 his most noted work, 'Die neue Typographie,' condemned all fonts but sans serif design.

Tschichold was condemned by the Nazi's for 'un-german' typography, and sought refuge in Switzerland, where he published 'Asymmetric Typography' in 1935.

In 1940, Jan concluded that new typography was fascist, and returned to new type in classical styles. Between 1947-1949, Jan lived in England and saw the redesign of 500 paper books published by Penguin books. Tschichold left Penguin books with a standardized set of typographic rules known as 'The Penguin Composition rules.'

Tschichold designed several different typefaces, such as transit (1931), Saskia(1931/1932), Zeus(1931), and Sabon (1966/1967). Sabon is the most widely used and popular typeface Tschichold designed. I have posted an example of Sabon typeface. Tschichold also devised a way to organize text and images in a flexible system that was able to help designers achieve coherency when organizing the page. This became a more modern typographic grid that became associated with the International Typographic style.