TYPOGRAPHIC JANGLE
A review of Poetry of invisible typography text
author: Olivera Batajić
July 2006

translation into English: Danijela Tomazović
November 2009

Typography at the beginning of 20th century cannot be contemplated separately from painting, poetry, literature, architecture, music, and eventually photography and film as well. More precisely, along with technology development and emergence of new art forms, the boundaries of visual conceiving were also moved. The lines between different art forms are erased and typography, as Herbert Spencer says it, becomes more visual, less textual, but most of all, stops being linear.

The Futurist Manifesto by F.T Marinetti, published in French Le Figaro on February 20 th 1909, was maybe the initial spark starting a chain reaction in all forms of art, thus in typography as well. At that time, there was a need for reaction to the highly industrialized 19th century, mass production, as well as to principles respected at that time. The revolutions of that time were created by artists. Those were the people who had their opinions on society, environment and had a strong need to “shout” those opinions in every possible medium they were active in. Press and thus typography was the most suitable of all, because it was a way to easily transfer ideas and spread messages. Within this, typography was a tool for expression.

The need for “strong” typography due to big demands of industrialized market was present as late as during 19 th century. The letters were becoming larger, “bolder” and more decorative, while the printing houses still kept the templates for nicely made books. This was of course giving disastrous results. The most famous in this series of innovation attempts in typography was founded in the 1870s. It was named Artistic Printing, and did not last long. Found in between the ones following the old tradition and the ones trying to create something new through “raging”, the pressmen produced something of bad quality . This is what provoked a strong reaction of Futurists to all that was happening. The movement was optimistic, full of energy, fascinated by the machines and so they implemented it in their painting, musical, literal… and also typographical works. Their motto was “revolution and movement ”. They wanted to “move” simple two-dimensional surfaces. Maybe the emergence of film had its part in such thinking, but all of it was definitely simultaneous with the current moment in society. Later they were inherited by Dadaist in Switzerland, Germany and France, Constructivists in Russia and famous De Stijl in Holland as well as by many others.

Marinetti writes: “The book will be futuristic expression of our futuristic consciousness. I am against the thing called harmony of layout . In case we need to, we will use three or four columns on a page and twenty different typefaces . We should mark the terms referring to speed in italic, and express the scream in bold letters … new, painting like, typographic expression will be born on a printed page.”

From the modern perspective, we can notice that Marinetti's ideas were very advanced, and that some are still alive today, especially in some informal written communication (emails and SMS, where specific weights of letters are used to express feelings or reactions). The Futurists mainly played with the form and believed that it should emphasize and interpret the content.

Beatrice Warde was a great opponent of such a contemporary typography. She believed that typography cannot be the purpose for itself, nor designers and typographers can give the new meaning to the text. Between the author and the reader there should be no one and nothing – she wrote. Typesetting is an invisible skill, and the letter is an unobtrusive servant. And why was it like that and what was the whole story?

The strongest critique was aimed towards introspective side of avant-garde typography. She thought that if typography was intrusive, that is, if typographer imposes it as such, than the observer (reader, user) is interrupted while thinking. In her “On the Choice of Typeface” text, she incorrectly compared the voice of the speaker to the readability of the typeface , because those are two completely different things. The thought is differently transferred in words then in characters. Different senses and different chemical processes are involved in these two processes. The speech is, as per de Saussure, original and natural medium of language, while writing is an external system of characters (alphabet for example) whose only purpose is to present the speech. Therefore, writing is the language representing a different language, a set of characters for representing characters. The outcome is the fact that typography cannot be invisible in any way, because each letter character carries its own meaning, and then again within a word has another meaning. Semiotic wise, including semantic wise within, the existence of invisible typography is impossible.

Therefore, to neglect such an important movement and to find its art worthless, was and still is today – pretentious. Oh yes, typography actually is not in the service of art, but in the service of functionality and information transfer. Let's remember the thinking and feeling friend, designer and artist. But was this what “the pioneers of contemporary typography” (as they were called) wanted? Was it important to communicate with the meaning of the written text or the interpretation of the written – interpretation and its presentation? There is one issue with lectures and texts of Beatrice Warde: she never critiques the wine but the glass it's in. It was unquestionable the wine was good. Maybe it was important to understand contemporary movements and the texts avant-garde typography and avant-garde typographers dealt with at that time. Maybe it all had a purpose, because of what it was – arts' scream saying that it has knowledge as well. Later this was confirmed – the times of suffering came.

Compared to the typography Beatrice talks about, the typography of Futurists, Dadaists and the movement known as concrete poetry, as well as of the later Bauhaus school and proclamation of New typography… this new expressive typographic form takes the role of content interpreter. Typographer, artist, processes the content in accordance with personal beliefs and preferences, thus interpreting the content in an essential, semantic way. In places where the readability was the key in the text, through Futurists, Dadaists and later visual (concrete) poets and others, the reader becomes attracted by positioning of the text on the page and by formal relations established within the text itself, expressed through different approaches in typographic method. And in the end: all of it means something, and all of it says something!

Unlike the situation in England , at that time in Germany the revolution in typography, as well as in architecture, and in other art forms was much more needed. Therefore modern architecture, modern art and modern typography developed in Germany, while in England they generally encountered less understanding and were rare. When the Nazis governance started in 30s, they realized that the true modern art as such interferes with accomplishment of their ideas, because it was free and curious. They announced it as decadent and prohibited it. Through opposing to the whole world, they created their own version of the history and used only Gothic letter, which became the national attribute excepting them from the rest of the world.

Typography development in Britain between 1918 and 1939 was in contrast with contemporary movements in Germany at that time, before the Nazis suppressed them and before the center moved to Switzerland .

And just as Jeffery Keedy says in his article The Rules of Typography According to ( Crackpots) Experts ( Eye Magazine, No. 11, November 1993): “The first thing one learns about typography and type design is that there are many rules and maxims. The second is that these rules are made to be broken. And the third is that “braking the rules” has always been just another one of the rules.”

But of course, the rules should never be ignored. This is why it is good for us to have the following few items in our workplace, in the front of our PCs, as in altar: on one side the poetic poster of Beatrice's Printing house, and on the other side some typographic illustration by Marcel Duchamp or any other of the Futuristic manifestos.

Again, when we look at today and typography “attacking” us, some from printed materials, some from TV, it is almost impossible to talk about invisible typography . Of course, this does not mean that, as invisible and as elegant as it is, it should not exist and that it should not pleasure its user in a sophisticated way. Depending on what is being graphically shaped, also depends designer's attitude towards typography. If it is a book meant for reading, of course that the text should be in a neat, clear typography layout not discomforting for eyes. But if it is a billboard, poster or an ad in the newspaper, then it is something that needs to draw attention in order to be read in the first place. Expression comes first in this case (something that in a way avant-garde typographers were working with) and the clearness and readability afterwards.

Typographic classics such as Beatrice will always find its place in some calm, democratic world. In the territories where the revolution is a way of life, there is no place for invisible typography or for the silent communication between the author and the reader. In these territories everyone is saying something and everyone communicates. Typography is interactive and even unexpectedly speaks for itself. The author tells one story, then the typographer adds personal opinion, typography tries to raise another transparent, and the reader is here to loudly shout the opinions of all, created in the correlation with himself.

By all means, the innovations and development must exist. Not at any price, and not to damage the quality, but in accordance with the time: current social moment and technological development which is becoming more and more relevant for development of any other field, so the boundaries of everything must be moved.

Still, at that time and compared to other typographers, it was brave to say that based on the goblet choice she will know whether a person is an expert or not. This would mean that some contemporary typography, known as avant-garde, did not have any qualities. From the modern perspective, this attitude is almost unimaginable. Was Beatrice Worde too strict or her opinion was absolutely correct, and the typography today sunk into abyss, instead for the harvest of human mind to be preserved in a crystal goblet. Again, the question is whether the harvest has the quality.

The pioneers of avant-garde typography, as said by Rick Poynor, now belong to design history. Again, the truth is that what came after them (postmodernism with its followers) continued their work or upgraded on it, with less attention paid to British classic school. According to Rick Poynor, the first creative person of “the new wave” was Wolfgang Weingart , the teacher in Basel Kunstgewerbeschule. In one Druckspiegel magazine , in 1964 , Wolfgang writes: “ Photoset with its technical abilities takes contemporary typography into a game where the rules do not exist.” Certainly one of the larger new typographic overturns, if we can say so, happened at the beginning of the 80s when computer layout editing emerged, and one of possibly most famous examples of this new typography was Émigré magazine. But that is a different topic.

TEXTS RELATED TO TOPIC

Poetry of invisible typography
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Beatrice Warde, also known as Paul Beaujon, is considered to be “the first lady of typography” [...]

On the choice of typeface
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The legibility of a typeface has an exact parallel in the audibility of a human voice. A lecturer must make every word audible and distinct. [...]