Jan Tschichold

In the first years of his life Jan Tschichold set out to be a illustration teacher, something his parents approved of because of its good income at the time. He was more interested in calligraphy himself and realise teaching wasn't his thing, moving on to studying typography. Lecturers noticed that his grasp on the subject was of a natural. He started script writing lecturers in 1921, when lecturers realised his ability and natural understanding. His works were influenced by the Bauhaus and he became known for his new typography. He changed his style completely making use of white space, simplified layouts, straight lines and Bauhaus typography (Sans Serif typeface). All his work was set in Sans, anything else to him was considered 'hurtful'. He saw it as a crime to ones work if done otherwise. He experimented with shape and size. He became very well known; some took a great liking to him whereas others hated him, to put it bluntly. After a while he started teaching typography in Frankfurt.  in 1928 he got a book published which left a great impact on graphic design; "The New Typography". When the war hit, the Nazi's did not like his work and held him captive for a period of time. They did not like this change, therefore holding all his works and books seized. He luckily managed to get out of Germany and back to Switzerland with his family and later on London. In 1949 he joined Penguin Books who were very unsuccessful at the time due to their lack of design. The rest all happened over 3 years. He needed to design brilliant covers for Penguin and was given a set of fixed rules and guidelines to follow. He broke through after a years work, and his work was later revised over 3 years adding few slight changed here and there. This included change of the Penguin Logo, fonts made smaller and even the size of the book was made more compact. This then became standard customs for Penguin books.

Die neue Typographie 1928                                        

This is one of his books which the Nazi's seized during the War.  

This is one of the Penguin layouts thats Jan Tschichold designed. It isn't overwhelming with different colours. He makes use of a lot of blank space to make it more neat. When it comes to Typography you can see that he makes use of serifless typeface and different angles when placing text.

Penguin book, poster, and boos designs by Jan Tschichold himself. 

He left great influence and long lasting impressions on typography an this influence will be passed on to designers for many years to come.

Jan Tschichold « MyFonts. 2013. Jan Tschichold « MyFonts. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.myfonts.com/person/Jan_Tschichold/.> [Accessed 18 November 2013].

Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . 2013. Richard Hollis: the brilliance of typographer Jan Tschichold | Art and design | theguardian.com . [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/05/jan-tschichold-typography >[Accessed 18 November 2013].

Jan Tschichold: Master Typographer | Book Review | Typographica . 2013.Jan Tschichold: Master Typographer | Book Review | Typographica . [ONLINE] Available at: <http://typographica.org/typography-books/jan-tschichold-master-typographer/.>[Accessed 18 November 2013].

Jan Tschichold Biography - Infos - Art Market. 2013. Jan Tschichold Biography - Infos - Art Market. [ONLINE] Available at: <http://www.jan-tschichold.com/.> [Accessed 18 November 2013].