Jan Tschichold: An amazing and influential designer with an incredibly difficult last name

Right. So I've been doing a shoddy job of keeping up-to-date on this thing. (how bloody typical)

These past few weeks have been utterly consumed with my latest Design project, the point of which is to design a book. Or, in the words of my professor:

"You will research a designer in your area of interest and create a two double-page spreads (four pages that are two sets of facing pages) about that designer including text and images. You will be using In-Design for your book.
Later in the project, your instructor will assign groups of 6-7 students who will combine their articles for a small book that includes each student's two-page double spreads. Each student will also create a Table of Contents and Title Page for their own book. Once the spreads have been combined and sequenced, each student will have Jayhawk Ink print and bind the book. For their copy of the book, each student will also create a jacket that shows the front and back covers and two inside flaps. The final book (sequenced, printed, bound, and jacket) will contain the same content for each member of the group, but will have a unique Jacket, Title Page, and Table of Contents. The completed book is due during your class sections meeting time during Finals Week."

From the frankly extensive list of designers, I chose Jan Tschichold. While sadly none of the designers on the list were British, this fellow had the biggest connection to England. You know those classic Penguin books? No? Well, here's a fairly typical example:

They have become (over the years) quite a big cultural icon. While searching through the wide wide webs for anything tagged with the words #Tschichold #Penguin Books #Penguin Classics and such, I encountered quite a diverse assortment of images that point to how big an impact these original Penguin paperbacks made. For example, I have found images of people that have tattooed the Penguin logo onto their bodies, I have come across wallpaper and wrapping paper and pillows and ties and blankets and towels and chairs all branded with the penguin logo. 

There are even quite a surprising lot of people who have chosen this classic Penguin book cover design for their wedding invitations!

Now it is important to note that Tschichold only worked for Penguin for a brief period of time and was not the inventor or originator. The Penguin books company was created with the idea that good, cheap paperbacks should be made available to all. However, they needed help making them look attractive to customers, which is where Jan Tschichold came in. He developed a set of typographic rules, which he was quite good at coming from a graphic arts academy where he studied book design. Heck, he was the son of a provincial sign painter, so he knew about making attractive typography. He spent the beginning of his career in Germany, but unfortunately lived there during the Nazi regime and was forced to escape to Switzerland in the 1930's when he was accused of whatever nonsense the Nazis were against at the time. In Switzerland he thrived with other prominent graphic designers of the time who were all going along with the Bauhaus ideals of simplicity and bold design. Here are some of his movie posters that showcase the Swiss Bauhaus aesthetic: 

He popularized the Van de Graaf canon of page construction (shown below), which was a method used to divide a page into pleasing proportions using geometry. Apparently it was based off of medieval manuscript layouts. 

I was pretty thrilled when the grid assigned to our class to design this assignment was Tshcichold's grid!

Tschichold was big on sanserif fonts, since he felt that the point of typography was to communicate information directly and clearly. The typeface shown below, which he designedin 1966, is called Sabon. He wanted it to be simple and legible, which it very clearly is.

 He published a book called The New Typograpy which, according to my research, is currently renowned as the most important work on typography in the twentieth century. Clearly, his career has left a lasting impression, both through his ideas about simple but bold typography and with his efforts in designing the classic Penguin paperbacks, which are now widely recognized and have become a cultural icon of British design.

Just look at this cutie!