Typography Posters In Historical Movement

All kinds of nature and physical forces follow their own rules, so as typography. This rule is the foundation of aesthetic formula to create typography. From my point of view, for typography, this rule represents the relationship between letters and letters, and letters and images. Everything on picture plane has to be considered as a whole because each of them has some affects of others. People were not realizing the power of the typography until the ubiquity of computer. With the improvement of technology, design works became simpler and more convenient, so this fact develops people’s knowledge of aesthetic. We are using type to share knowledge and inherit culture heritage of our world. Typography is not only important to literatures, but also plays a vital role in design history. Being developed for centuries, the diversity of typography on posters or any other design piece are not limited by people’s thought. The uses of typography in design world are even more important than literatures, because all the letters or words are being visualized and given the same value as graphics instead of maximizing its meanings like how they are treated in the literatures. Typography here brings viewers entertainment and educational thought while they inform viewers at the same time.

In contemporary uses of typography, designers minimized the meanings and informedness of texts in order to make the whole image visually balanced. There was a revolutionary movement in typography world during 1920s to 1930s, which so-called New Typography Movement. This movement was a main factor that contributed graphic design and Bo 2 informational art of the artistic avant-garde in central Europe. The key feature of New Typography Movement art style was abandoned the traditional arrangement of type in symmetrical columns. Designers trying to make the layout of artworks or posters strikingly asymmetrical but harmony by using blocks of type and photomontage. People call this New Typography Movement a revolutionary movement in design world because it was the first time for designers to use asymmetrical layouts, geometric shapes, a limited range of colors and sans serif letter forms instead of using the old rule of typography. According to Antoine Sammut’s article New Typography Movement, all the posters’ contents are arranged by its hierarchy. Moreover, just as the posters above, white space seems very important to the designers to compose a page because it brings a high contrast with photomontage or with any other geometric shapes. Designers intentionally use these white parts to create visual balance as well as make the asymmetrical poster easier to accepted by all the audiences. What’s more, all the objects in the posters are simplified and tend to be geometric shapes, even include typography. As we can see, all the type are strictly Sans Serif fonts so that they can accompany the geometric nature of the modernist philosophy. By designing posters in this way, viewers will regard all the types as a composition part of the whole image rather than read whole texts first because the meaning seems less important than the whole layout. Besides, there always be a focal point that can call out people’s attention. For instance, in the film poster Die Frau Ohne Namen on the right image I listed above, the designer Jan Tschichold uses a few lines, images, geometric shapes and typography to create a perspective that vanishes on the upper right. He uses big and bold typeface as the top line to embody the geometrical characteristic, it definitely rebuilds viewer’s aesthetic system about posters at that time.

In this type of movement, there are two designers that must be introduced. First one played a leader role in New Type Movement whose name was El Lisstzky, also was the designer of the first image that I listed above on the left. He used to be one of the Russian Constructivist Movement which I will introduce later. This Russian typography designer was considered as key figure in the whole New Type Movement because he was one of the first designers using asymmetrical layout and applying modern art technics to typography. “Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts,” he used to say in an article, “as well as “Art can no longer be merely a mirror, it must act as the organizer of the people’s consciousness… No form of representation is so readily comprehensible to the masses as photography” (Strizer). His thoughtful, somewhat cerebral work brings a brand new view in modern art. It was said that his graphic principles were even influenced other designers and was brought to Bauhaus. Another great typographer in this movement is Jan Tschichold, who I mentioned before. As a Germany avant-garde typographer, one of his memorable accomplishments in British was postwar refashioning of Penguin paperbacks banded covers. Being influenced by Mondrian, abstract art began to play a large part in Tschichold’s work. He used to set forth a radical concept of this movement: “the purpose of the New Typography is functionality”. By following this concept, Tschichold’s new design, which moved away and changed the traditional notions and introduced the principle of clarity and functionality, successfully made guideline for a new era of typography in the time were the emphasis was on beauty and aesthetics. From that time, this guideline provided functional typography and its methods were quickly adopted by other designers. Thus, we can say El Lisstzky was the pioneer of New Typography Movement leading designers to pay attention to this kind of new design, while Jan Tschichold was a fugleman that made the New Typography Movement really begin to take off. I truly agree with what Steven Heller said at the last paragraph in chapter Asymmetric Typography in 100 Idea That Changed Graphic Design, symmetry, balance and order are classic virtues in typography design at that time. Designer who had this kind of thinking so called rebel thought was definitely one of a kind. Asymmetry typography was not just meaning of communication with viewers, it was more like a statement, which ultimately became a method practiced by evangelical Modernists and became a style.

New Typography Movement was completely new blood to design world comparing to the type design during 1837s-1901s, which known as Victorian Era. The era also known as revolutionary because it was the time of finished Industrial Revolution, which was the period of fundamental changes in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and social structure. People yearn for change in their daily life, include designers who have advanced views on everything. So that the word innovation became a very important term for them to express their life. At that time, Victorian commercial printed matter was just pay attention to the era’s pervasive ornamentation and careless craftsmanship. Due to merchant’s demand for distinctive announcements did result in truly original display faces, the compositor didn’t care about if the letter was a lower-case g or an upside-down b as long as it looks fine to read. The feature of the typeface at that time was mainly using grotesque Bodoni and Dido to make all the letters larger and bolder. This kind of type design, now recognized as quintessentially Victorian, was called Fat Face at that time.

Victorian style is very distinctive due to its large format typefaces (or we can say variety of type size). It has been said that all text’s weight crammed within the page format was an invention of expedience so that designers make all poster’s headline and subtitles extremely large to utilize every inch of precious space on the poster. Another feature of Victorian era poster style is that all the texts are perfectly central aligned in order to meets people’s aesthetics. Posters have to be symmetry composition to please audiences otherwise those posters cannot be considered as a great design. This fact is understandable because setting type was a very slow process at that time. It was more important that people can get the information from the poster rather than design technics. People set type by hand and then redistributing it into the job case and took their majority of attention instead of thinking how to make the poster contain more sense of design.

Typography is the key element during both Victorian era typography posters and New Typography Movement posters, however the functionality of typography were completely different stories to be shown to the audiences. It is very necessary to discuss what make designer changed their view, which was shift the emphasis of typography from informational to visualization. After industrial revolution, all the people were basking in the benefit of industry, machinery, and mass production, they were more willing to absorb txt and knowledge from masses of materials, also included posters and flyers. The boldness and old-fashioned letters were representing people’s living status, which was fearless and always ready to practical. By decades of social development, people’s living conditions were much more advanced than Victorian era in the beginning of 20th century, when the New Typography Movement raised up. Even though there weren’t a huge progress at the beginning of 20th century comparing Victorian era, people’s informational consciousness and aesthetic level had a drastic improvement. That was the main reason that typography was not existing as information uses at all, designers use them to create imagery sense to maximize the purpose of types. That brings us to the first half of the article, how New Typography Movement artists use asymmetrical composition combining with simple geometric shapes to grab audiences’ attention. Another reason for the designer’s view on typography poster design between these two eras was the invention and widely uses of digital techniques. Comparing with New Typography Movement, all the typefaces on Victorian style posters were manually set, as I mentioned before, compositor had very limit space to change dimension or perspective of the text because all the texts were fixed and always reused from one poster to another. The situation was completely changed at the beginning of 20th century because designers were able to use digital technique and different media to edit composition until the design could bring people enough visual impact.

Speaking of Visual impact, circus posters certainly have a place here. In late 19th century, while big fat typeface still dominated most posters, entertaining posters gradually came on stage of design history and called people’s attention. As an important informational element, typography uses on circus posters were also very distinctive from the posters in Victoria era or New Typography Movement. The success of circus was inseparable from its posters. Circus posters were actually existing in early 19th century, however the golden time of circus posters was in the late 19th century. Early 19th century printers used mahogany wood blocks for wood engravings and pine blocks for cruder woodcuts, and printers used those blocks over and over again for different posters because the mahogany blocks were expensive. So that most early posters were produced in mass, and most shows would use a same design, even often with only a printed title. Thanks for the invention of lithographic printing, poster production had a drastically change, and it helped to lay a solid foundation for the rise of circus posters. According to Brooke wrote in his article Step Right Up! To The World of Circus Posters about the design process of the posters, printers enlisted the services of the finest artists to design circus posters, yet few artists signed their works. Some of them specialized in particular subjects, most worked in teams to create the posters in a more or less assembly line process. Thus, posters became known by the companies that printed them and not by the artists who created them. No wonder why those great looking posters were not recognized by artists and a lot of audiences at first. Comparing to Victoria era poster, typography in circus poster is more vivacious because it’s not rigorous wood type look and staying on the same line like soldiers anymore. Instead, the orientation of these letters were set by how illustration goes. For instance, as the dancing lady poster listed above, we can see all the texts are not only surrounding by the main figure, but also have some interactions with the dancing lady. The letter ‘S’ on the left side near the lady has one part under the golden stick and the other part is above it, while the letter ‘B’ on the right side of the lady is completely behind her. This semicircle shape of the headline creates a visually focal point to make all the audiences notice the main figure in the middle. Because the dancing lady has a very vivid gesture, it makes more sense all types are surrounding her contiguously, and makes the dancing lady in this poster even more outstanding.

All the type settings are still perfectly symmetrical, lying at the left and right side of the lady. Moreover, two subtitles at the top and bottom of the poster show the symmetrical. Another feature that worth to be mentioned is the color of all types. From headline to subtitle, even the body text, there are different colors to represent different titles. It seems that the larger type that is, the lighter color it maintains. Using color to separate hierarchy is a great way for audience to get information, rather than put all types in same color with no illustrations as Victoria era typography posters. Same situation at the circus poster I listed above at the right. Typography in this poster has more informational sense than the dancing lady one. Almost all the texts are gathering in the middle of the poster and using a white box to keep them together. The main figure is the white box and typography instead of illustrations. Typography color is limited in three colors that makes people focus on text itself. The different part of this poster is that the designer chooses to use both Serif and San-Serif font to show the variety of type. Even though, we know that designers tend to use less Serif font to show progress of design at that time. From these two posters, we can see designers keep moving their mind towards modern feel as time goes. The change of time and technology brought them a lot of inspirations on how to make so called good use of graphic and typography to create better visual feelings. Even though it still has big difference comparing with New Typography Movement, at least it becomes more vivid and has more visual appealing than Victoria era typography posters.

Later on, almost all typography posters used New Typography Movement’ design posters as guidance. Inspired by New Typography Movement, designers obtained the basic sense of how to make their design looks have sense of modern, which is using simplified, asymmetrical or geometrical form to maximize the visual impact of the designs. In design history, these features are just a start point of new design. There was another movement also happened when almost at Bo 10 the same time as New Typography Movement, which named Constructivism. Constructivism was a groundbreaking movement in art, design, and architecture, and began in Russia in 1913, but really rose to prominence after Russian Revolution of 1917. This revolution was a time of great dissent and change, leading to the dismantling of the Tsarist regime. The Russian Constructivism design works always reflects a belief in art for social change rather than personal expression. So that it was considered more of a philosophy than just an art style. Besides, Russian Constructivism design were preferring functional art and design rather than decorative, expressive art such as easel painting that can be hung on the walls. By using constructed photomontages and strong typography, designers replaced traditional techniques and tools which being used for a long time to created figurative paintings and art styles. Just like the showing image at left, Russian Constructivism posters always have limited color, which are red, black, and sometimes yellow. Some diagonal elements with circular and angled type and images were most popular elements appearing in Russian Constructivism posters. As we can see, the result of this kind of poster is very dramatic but powerful. All the types in the poster are not just for information that need people to know at the first glance. Typography from now is using for reconstructing to variety of new forms that help with poster’s content. It was said Russian Constructivism originally intended for convey political messages, gradually it seeped into product advertisements and all kinds of posters, as well as book covers and interiors.

Alexander Rodchenko was the first artist in Russian Constructivism style who makes typography had content by itself. He was considered one of the founders of Russian Constructivism movement. The artist Kasmir Malevich coined the term constructivist to reference the works of Rodchenko. Alexander Rodchenko once said in an article that “there is now a new illustrative method: montage of printed and photographic materials focused on a certain subject. Providing ample material of great demonstrative value and conviction, it dispensed with illustration by drawing”. The image above is his deign works that based on this statement, it was named Books for the Leningrad branch of the state publishing house Gosizdat. This design considered as loud typography because he released words from conventional strictures of neutrality and transparency, all the texts in the poster are speaking for themselves. This was one of the first time lettering was used like a speech bubble, which can simulate voice. This poster was the most literal manifestation of loud typography. The triangular shape works as a megaphone that contains all the bold types. The lines emanating from megaphone are symbolic sound lines, which also reinforce the aural experience. As the author wrote in 100 Ideas That changed Graphic Design in idea 29, “Accents may change from culture to culture, volume may be modulated from project to project, yet type continues to speak at all levels. Culturally, the level of loudness is not dictated by any one movement,” typography is universal and the way to show its sound are variety. It doesn’t have to be so literal like how Alexander Rodchenko did for the poster Book, sometimes it has sound effects that created by words, either use some diagonal lines or shapes that has eye catching results. Actually, larger type also has the effect of loudness because when people reading larger or bold texts, subconsciously, they will read them more carefully.

Not only typography can bring viewers sense of sound or other feelings by changing weight or settings, but also can be a representational imagery that can leave completely different impression for audiences. As the time change, designers always keep finding new thoughts and challenges for typography, and that’s the time Calligram comes to people’s mind. Influenced by Russian Constructivism Movement, some book designers and even some authors in 19th century began to experiment with type as images that using word, sentences, and paragraphs to create represents ideas put forth in the text. Type was manipulated into many different pictorial forms. Calligram was invented by Guillaum Apollinaire in 1918. A calligram is a poem whose verses are arranged to form a drawing related to the poem. It completely changed designers’ mind because using type represents images was groundbreaking. Most typesetting was composed in a straightforward, symmetrical, linear manner. I would say this was a milestone for typography because for centuries typography was use as educational or informational purpose. But from this movement, it refreshed people’s stereotype of typography. There are lots of awesome design works that use Calligram to create the whole artworks. For instance, Paul Bacon’s book jacket design in 1960s, Bo 13 The Big Drink. The reason we call it book jacket because once Paul Bacon said in the Print interview that “If I was born to do something, it was to design book jackets”.

Every book cover he designed just like an artistic jacket that showing unique feature of the book. As a form of advertisement for Coca Cola, even though this book cover looks very simple, it was very popular because if its design. Besides its background, it just has three color involved, which are black, green and red. The black color is at the top representing the color of coke; and we all recognize red type is the brand identity of Coca Cola; while green was applied on two parts, one is a part of the book’s name ‘The Story of’ and the other part is author’s name. I think green represents Paul Bacon’s yearning for vigorous development of the brand and the book. All these letters are squeezed into the shape of a Coke bottle. This is exactly how calligram works, which is using type to illustrate an image. Because of the reputation of Coca Cola, this piece also helped popularize the calligrams. The fascinating part of calligram artwork is that can use simplicity of typography to create multiple purpose. This is a powerful example that demonstrates typography should have the same value as image has in design field. So calligram was another big progress in design history comparing to other movements that I mentioned before. For centuries designers have used type for communicate, expressive, educational and entertainment purpose. Contemporary designers continue those traditions, albeit through different approaches, technology and aesthetics. The expression of typography always changes by time, and it always become images depends how the artist constructing it. Audiences’ interpretation of type and posters is also change by time. No matter what, people still seek out information and clarity from typography, sometimes merely pursue visual entertainment, and sometimes wanting a spectacle instead of messages. The most important thing is typography as an artistic medium can be inherited generation by generation.

References

1. Antoine Sammut. New Typography Movement http://antoinesammut.blogspot.com/2014/01/new-typography-movement.html
2. Bob Brook Step Right Up! To The World of Circus Posters http://bobbrooke.com/circusposter.htm#Early%20Circus%20
3. History Ilene Strizver Russian Constructivism and Graphic Design https://creativepro.com/russian-constructivism-and-graphic-design/
4. Renee Clair Tafoya Graphic Design History https://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/the-victorian-era/
5. Richard Hollis Jan Tschichold: A Titan of Typography https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/05/jan-tschichold-typography
6. The Calligrams of Guillaume Apollinaire https://afthailande.org/en/the-calligrams-of-guillaume-apollinaire/
7. Elaine Woo Paul Bacon Dies at 91; He Revolutionized The Design of Book Covers https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-paul-bacon-20150618-story.html
8. Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne 100 Ideas That Changed Graphic Design Bo 16 Published in 2012, Laurence King Publishing Ltd.