An attractive, interesting layout can certainly attract and please the reader; but when the details are not good, reading requires more effort and any pleasure is short-lived. Detail in typography is a concise and close-up view of the subject – letters, words, the line, and the space around the elements – and it discusses what is essential for the legibility of the text. Yet this is more than a guide to correct typography. How is it, Hochuli asks, that text can be set perfectly and yet look insufferably dull? Answers may be found here, not least in the way the book itself has been set and produced. Jost Hochuli is a Swiss typographer, internationally renowned for his book design work. As a teacher, he has had long experience in Zurich and his home town of St. Gallen. As a writer and editor, his books include Book design in Switzerland (1993), Designing books (1996), and Jost Hochuli: Printed matter, mainly books (2002). He has edited and designed the annually published Typotron series of booklets (1983-1998) and the Editions Ostschweiz (from 2000).
Unjustified texts
Over twenty-five years of engagement, somewhere in the borderlands between journalism and the academy, Robin Kinross has written for magazines and journals, making a case for typography as a matter of fine detail and subtle judgement, whose products concern all of us, every day.
This selection of his shorter writings brings his major themes into focus: the unsung virtues of editorial and information design, the fate of Modernism in the twentieth century, the work of dissident and critical Modernist designers, the contributions of emigré designers from Europe in the English-speaking world, the virtues of a socially-oriented design approach.
He argues for a design that is of use in the world, and against the cult of design and the delusions of theory. Pieces move from patient exposition, to sharp critique, to warm appreciation. This book presents an unexpected body of writing, which stakes out fresh territory between the purely academic and the merely journalistic. The whole is an unusual and powerful contribution to the subject of typography.
“In short, a nice book to read and the perfect antidote to all those slick design books.”
Mathieu Lommen, Items
Modern Typography
Situating the birth of modern typography around 1700, when it started to be distinct from printing, Robin Kinross introduces in Modern Typography a new understanding of the subject: as something larger and more deeply rooted than a modernism of style, echoing Jürgen Habermas’s proposition that modernity is ‘a continuing project’. Starting with the early years of the Enlightenment in France and Britain, different cultures and countries successively become the focus for the discussion as they gain significance. Examining the social, technical and material contexts in which typographers operate, the argument also considers principles and explanations of practice. This essay is seminal in many ways, providing a lively and critical narrative of historical development, a springboard for further investigation, and reproductions of not-often seen items.
‘This is a book to read and reread. It is provocative, dense, opinionated, and thoroughly original. […] It deserves to become a classic.’ Alastair Johnston, Bookways
Systematic book design?
Does designing a book follow a logical and well-thought-out process? Swiss graphic designer and typographer Jost Hochuli studies the crucial role played by instinct throughout the various stages of planning a book, from selecting a typeface and its size to determining the layout of the blocks of text.
Drawing on his own experience and examples taken from various books he created, Jost Hochuli considers the questions which arose while they were being designed and the importance of intuition in rational thought.
“Systematic book design?” was written for a lecture Jost Hochuli gave for the first time in Munich in 2007, and then at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2011 on the initiative of F7. The text has been first published in Back Cover magazine in 2011. John Morgan’s foreword was especially written for the present edition.
Jost Hochuli’s text was translated from German by Charles Whitehouse.
Foreword by John Morgan
LUDIFIED
LUDIFIED offers a comprehensive insight into the artistic research project “GAPPP–Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice” which was based at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz from 2016-2020. In this project, a team of artists and researchers set themselves the task of exploring the artistic potential of elements from computer games in the context of audiovisual composition and performance. The examination of almost twenty artistic works that have arisen in connection with this project has led to numerous findings, which are not only reproduced here textually but also aesthetically.
In addition to various texts by the core team consisting of Marko Ciciliani, Barbara Lüneburg and Andreas Pirchner, LUDIFIED also presents texts, pictures and sketches by guests who accompanied the project. The integrated USB stick contains high-quality documentation of audiovisual works that were of particular importance for the project. Numerous illustrations and the integration of an augmented reality part complete the aesthetic impression on the one hand, and on the other, convey the process of creative and research work.
The book is divided into two main parts, one in which the project is introduced in general, and various methodological research approaches are set against works by different artists. Another part is exclusively dedicated to Marko Ciciliani, the head of the research project, who contributed numerous newly created audiovisual compositions to the project and thus set significant focal points in the research.
Also, it contains an USB-Stick and Augmented Reality–for those who wonder.
Ina Weber – Out to Lunch
In her book “Out to Lunch,” Ina Weber assembles an array of ceramic architecture models depicting diverse variations of Chinese restaurants familiar to our hemisphere.
Ina Weber concerns herself with the exotic and its romanticisation. Her ceramic works refer both to the subject matter and materiality of eighteenth-century chinoiserie and to contemporary trends in architecture. She deals with the mutual influence of east and west—between affirmation and misunderstanding.
Certain elements of traditional Chinese building techniques have found a sustained and unbridled distribution in our hemisphere. In fact, not one of the many Chinese restaurants in any mid-sized or larger city could do without them. When the first restaurants run by Chinese owners opened in Berlin Charlottenburg in the 1920s, Asian folklore was by no means part of the décor. These restaurants were initially a decidedly urban phenomenon and were considered throughout Europe to be specific expressions of cultural modernity. It wasn’t until the big boom of Chinese restaurants in the ‘60s and ‘70s that folklore found its way into the ambience. It was during this time that Ina Weber was growing up and perhaps it was one such early childhood visit in the circle of her family to a similar establishment that introduced the desire for far and unknown worlds. Even to this day, the artist draws much of her inspiration from traveling the globe.
Ina Weber was born in Dietz on the Lahn in 1964. From 1989 to 1994, she studied with Friedrich Salzmann, Harry Kramer, and Martin Kippenberger at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. After working a number of positions, Weber has lived in Berlin since 2003 and worked as professor of sculpture at the Universität Der Künste since 2016.
Woodcut Vibes
Roman Klonek, born in Kattowitz / Poland, has a spot for old fashioned cartoons and modern block printing styles. In the 90s he studied Graphic Arts in Dusseldorf and discovered a passion for woodcut. With this book the Dusseldorf-based artist gives a detailed insight into the working process and the background of his woodcut prints.
The woodcut technique is particularly interesting, as it is primarily known as a “very old” medium and therefore often creates a surprise effect, especially with contemporary motifs. Feel invited to follow the pages about a variety of whimsical characters, often half animal / half human in preferably curious surroundings and embarrassing situations.
A bizarre balancing act between propaganda, folklore and pop!
Moving Pictures – The complete film posters of Hans Hillmann
Between 1954 and 1974, Hans Hillmann designed over 150 film posters for masterpieces of cinema—including films by Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergio Leone, Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, and Akira Kurosawa. In the early 1950s, while still a student, Hillmann began designing posters for the newly founded film distributor Neue Filmkunst Walter Kirchner. With little or no intervention by the client he had the freedom to create unique graphic design solutions. He used drawing, photography and typography in a complementary interaction and quickly gained international recognition. In his twenty years of work for Neue Filmkunst, he revolutionized poster design for independent movies and became one of the trailblazers of modern graphic design in Germany after the Second World War.
This book shows, for the first time, all of Hans Hillmann’s film posters. Unpublished sketches and drafts from his estate along with commentary from conversations and interviews provide an insight into the creative process of the award-winning designer. His principle to “compete with himself” and to develop different approaches for each task is a universal and timeless leitmotif for all designers and can be explored in the best possible way here. With over 300 illustrations, reproduced and printed in the highest quality, the book presents one of the most remarkable oeuvres in graphic design history.
further 02
The Fotobus Society, founded by Christoph Bangert, provides a network connecting more than 700 photographers who are currently studying at German and European universities or photography schools. Members have access to a wide range of cultural and social activities offered by the association. At the heart of the community is a 30-year-old bus that serves as a mobile photography school and regularly carries members to photo festivals, symposia, and professional events.
“further 02” is the second volume in a series presenting selected works by members. Whereas the main mission of the association is to promote exchange within the international photography scene, the coronavirus pandemic prevented the artists from travelling and meeting up as usual. For many of them, taking photos became an outlet and a medium to communicate with the “outside world”. As a result, the projects showcased in this publication also tell of the insecurity, hope, and distress of the last months, giving an inside view of the experiences and stories of people from around the world. In different ways, the images document their lives and the spaces in which they live, or the concepts and ideas, in which they believe.
Marcus Weber – Adalbertstraße 2008-2010
Marcus Weber’s series of paintings “Adalbertstraße 2008-2010” takes on the appearance of a colorful curio collection bringing into the picture urban conditions of the German capital in a fashion at the same time insouciantly sensual and cryptically analytical.
The individual works are suspensefully staged variations of one horizontal and one vertical visual structure. For the most part a clear-cut, geometrically variable basic design is discernible, with the laid-out-in-color sidewalk strips localized in the bottom third. Separated by contours, an architectural background rises above this, usually treated like a modular construction system of geometric basic shapes. Only because lettering is added by way of fluffy brushwork, the form constructs can be identified: as a billboard, a fish store, or a travel agency. Onto this, in most cases stereometrically structured, matrix, Marcus Weber applies most diverse figurative personnel. The people depicted enliven with their postures, penchants, and gestures the architectural framework in manifold ways.
The artist presents the confusingly multiform big-city stage complete with keenly observed and lovingly typecast human specimen acting on it. What comes across as ever so fresh and colorful, though, is not just the result of an affirmative, insouciant joy of painting, but rather a realistic, precisely researched and implemented social study wherein individuals of a most heterogeneous character have been observed with subtle irony in their “suchness”.
At first sight the paintings by Marcus Weber would join the ranks of a genesis of painterly comic book adaptations generated since the 1960s—you might feel remotely reminded of Philip Guston, Peter Saul, or George Condo. Yet it is no less intriguing to perceive the series “Adalbertstraße 2008–2010” in the tradition of Berlin milieu descriptions. You would think, of course, of George Grosz, also of Karl Hubbuch, or Rudolf Schlichter—albeit Marcus Weber endearingly avoids any sarcastic or cynical undertone when describing the human condition.
Matias Bechtold – Objekte (Objects)
The catalog “Objekte (Objects)” presents scupltures by Matias Bechtold. His models of buildings and cities are ironic comments on architecture that celebrate possibility – in a surprising artistic take on feasibility.
The different view through which Matias Bechtold perceives our world is essentially determined by shifts in scale. He miniaturizes modernist architecture. The urban topography put forward in his models allows two perspectives. You can perceive it as a sculpture, as if circling over street canyons at a dizzying height, only to imagine yourself a moment later as an inhabitant of the miniature buildings. Bechtold’s utopias not only provide an overview of the seemingly limitless complexity of a city but also open up unusual perspectives when you go into detail.
nomad #7 — where to go?
The new links between disciplines and technologies being built by visionary
designers, artists, scientists and architects are currently unveiling options for the future of our primary needs: how we live, what we eat, how we dress. Signs which—if indeed they come to pass despite their occasional outlandishness—may tomorrow be viewed as harbingers of a new age: The New Reality.
We meet with New York-based fashion designer Suzanne Lee, who has spent many years exploring the possibility of manufacturing materials based on microorganisms with radically low environmental impact, which could revolutionise our use of leather and cotton.
In our interview by Kimberly Bradley, architect David Chipperfield spoke with the luxury of far-sightedness, discussing architecture and its opportunities to cast influence. “Architects have no power, designers have no power—unless we leverage it. At one time architecture was far more connected to social advocacy… We’ve been working for investors and not society. That has to change”, believes Chipperfield.
Canadian-British designer Philippe Malouin has devised an aesthetic that captures a new language of form. His studio is small, his working methods unconventional—the office is closed every Friday without fail. And yet it works: Philippe is currently one of the most sought-after designers in the world. nomad visited him in his London studio. Designer Marije Vogelzang has chosen a remarkable path; as an ‘eating designer’, she experiments with food and incorporates personal and sociocultural experiences associated with food and eating into her work. We visited Marije’s refreshing universe of ideas in Dordrecht.
Our interview in Copenhagen with Liza Chong, CEO of INDEX, immersed us in a non-profit with a wonderfully straightforward description of its mission and image: “It’s all about design to improve life”.
Andreas Seltzer – Der Sendermann / The Transmitter Man
In the winter months of 1972, the first messages from the so-called Sendermann (Transmitter Man) appeared in the Berlin districts of Tempelhof and Schöneberg. By 1978, when the messages ceased to appear, “Der Sendermann” had covered the city centre of West Berlin with a whole series of inscriptions. Back then, the Berlin artist Andreas Seltzer wandered through the city in search of these inscriptions and captured his findings in a series of photographs.
In times in which the uncovering of various secret service surveillance activities has become a recurring topic in the daily news, the warnings of the Sendermann seem like early prophecies.
… The Sendermann’s inscriptions develop an anarchic vitality …
(K. H. Bohrer, FAZ)
… Seltzer shows the work of a man who warned at an early stage about the invisible control and manipulation of consciousness by transmitters …
(Dirck Möllmann, MANSON, catalog, Kunsthalle Hamburg)
… Like the drifter in John Carpenter’s “They Live,” the Sendermann saw more than most people could see. It had somehow become clear to him that one is not only being listened to but also manipulated. …
(Claudia Basrawi, TAZ)
… an act of revolt! …
(Andrea Hill, Artscribe)
Tonight at Merlin
Over the course of a year, graphic designers Mark Bohle and Raffael Kormann designed posters for all concerts at the music and arts venue Kulturzentrum Merlin in Stuttgart. The publication “Tonight at Merlin” captures this noticeable collection. For each of the 80 posters, some of which have been awarded internationally, the publication offers an honest glimpse into the visual making-of and the corresponding thoughts behind. Moreover the publication is linked to the bands and their posters, enabling the reader to listen to the corresponding sound while deep diving into the artworks.
Three essays by Arne Hübner (booking Merlin, designer and DJ), Niklaus Troxler (poster designer and founder of the Jazz festival Willisau), and Das bisschen Totschlag (Brunchpop-Band) contextualise this stimulating symbiosis of visual communication, music, and popular culture.
“The present publication ‘Tonight at Merlin’ shows an impressive annual production by a design team that draws on unlimited with high design standards.” —Niklaus Troxler
character#02
character#02 is the second specimag by Character Type—a blend of type magazine and a typeface specimen. Their rich archive of collected typeface specimens and type magazines has inspired them to marry the two into one creative space and share some recent type-related thoughts and insights, while introducing Character Type’s newest typeface super family NewsSerif.
character#02 features a photographic essay by Bettina Theuerkauf about the self-destructive tendencies of modern society. We also look at the history of type families and also work our way through the concept of variable fonts.
nomad #8 — where to go?
Issue #8 of nomad magazine takes a look at the north. We visit Snøhetta, the globally esteemed Oslo-based architects’ office and interview one of its founders, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen. In a former pumping station in Berlin, we meet with Danish-Norwegian artistic duo Elmgreen & Dragset.
We talk to Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian smell artist und olfactory researcher and Julia Lohmann, a design professor at Alvar Aalto University in Helsinki, who applies a critical design perspective to an examination of the potential of marine algae. Photographer Marzena Skubatz contributes a portrait of Brekka, a remote village in the East Fjords of Iceland and takes us to Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen, a Norwegian Sámi musician who combines modernity and the traditions of the Sámi. Oliver Godow, artist, photographer and participant at the oslobiennalen 2019, photographed for nomad the series ‘New Light City’ an homage to the city of Oslo and its transformation. At the heart of traditional Aschau in Upper Bavaria, Nils Holger Moormann lives and breathes a completely different design culture with his furniture production and we learn to know his new chair “Bruto”. And Melanie Kurz, professor of design theory and design history in Aachen, portrays Swedish designer Carl Larsson and his book ‘Ett hem’ (A Home), that has been written over 100 years ago.
Pillow »Feddersen«
Attention, Serious Art Theory!
The intersection between unity and permeation of artistic sphere is stripped down to their identity and corporate ideology. The ambigous range of forms presented alongside one another has a mesmerizing effect on the viewer.
A hinzkunst pillow is the perfect companion that makes you feel like being on cloud nine.
Support Independent Type—the New Culture of Type Specimens
Support Independent Type is a book about the new culture of type specimens, their impact on design and typographic culture at large. It’s a manifesto for independent type foundries showcasing their work in an effort to promote freshly designed fonts, and why we should support them. An exhibit of over 400 of today’s most adventurous typography labels and designers, showcasing their physical and digital type specimens! The carefully selected collection gives a glimpse into the adventurous shift of this creative industry.
The authors believe that “independent type design reflects culture in its ambition to build an exciting alternative to the monolithic corporate font giants. In that spirit, we put together a collection of the most trendsetting, forward-thinking and provocative type specimens produced in the last decade.”
A manifesto for independent type foundries and a visual firework!
Awarded with ADC Award Germany (Silver), Type Directors Club New York, and Tokyo TDC Award.
Coffee Table ”XYZ” – white
The sculptural shape of our “XYZ” Coffee Table takes on a new appearance of form and typography, revealing the letters X, Y and Z from a variety of angles. “XYZ” is a functional and expressive side table, well suited for your living space.
Each product is especially handcrafted for you, so please allow 2-4 weeks for production.
TEATRIP – eine faszinierende Reise durch das Reich der Mitte
For this book tea friends from the German-speaking countries waited long: TEATRIP is a fascinating journey by the realm of the center. It points the whole variety out of the Chinese tea culture in breath-taking pictures and accompanying stories.
– Understand the differences & characteristics of China’s most famous tea cultivation areas.
– Learn exciting details about the cultivation, processing and preparation of China’s six major tea varieties: Oolong, white, green, yellow, black, and Pu-Erh tea.
– Learn to read the taste pictures of China’s best tea varieties correctly.
The plain truth behind China’s tea culture: China keeps the best varieties for itself! Only little is known in this country about the Chinese tea growing areas and the variety of flavors of the countless tea varieties.
Christian Beck is author of the book TEATRIP. He has been trading with the best teas from China, Taiwan and Japan for over ten years. On his annual tea trips, he has become acquainted with the top tea growing areas and top players in Chinese tea culture.
Stefan Braun, one of the best food photographers in Germany, accompanied Christian for several weeks on his travels throughout China.
In the book TEATRIP, the authors tell the stories from over ten years of tea shopping in China. The book takes you on a fascinating journey, which you can experience first hand thanks to sensational photos.
The authors present unique humans and show on the basis first-class pictures like cultivation, processing, and tea benefit in China really lived.
In the focus of the book are handmade teas from small family businesses from ecological and wild tea gardens. Their journey roams the most important cultivation areas from Zhejiang over Fujian, Taiwan, Guangdong, and into China’s deep south, to Yunnan into the world of Pu-Erh tea.
Cover motif: Freshly picked Assamica tea leaves on the Ailao Shan in Yunnan
Back cover: Master Wu tasting a Wuyishan Oolong tea
Awarded with Deutscher Fotobuchpreis (Gold) 2021/22.
Spring! Der Traum vom erfolgreichen eigenen Atelier – und der sichere Weg dorthin
Guide to independence!
In their studies and the first years of their careers, creative people learn a lot about crafts and techniques, they develop their style, discover their talent. What hardly comes up is the economic aspect of the creative life. They live for their ideas, but how they make a living from them remains a book with seven seals.
As an employed designer you get a more or less transparent salary, more or less insight into the figures. Rather less. And because numbers remind you of math, you also shy away from them. So you stay, change agencies, are more or less satisfied–but you’re afraid of the big leap into self-employment. It’s too dangerous. Too risky.
This book changes that!
Martina Flor has dared to do it. She enjoys the freedom to decide for herself which jobs she wants to take and which she doesn’t. When she works and what. She is her own boss and she likes to be that. She teaches and networks, travels and gives lectures. And she can make a living out of it. Even more: Every day she proves that children and career are not mutually exclusive if you plan and live your independence solidly. She knows about the stumbling blocks and pitfalls in the everyday life of freelancers. And she tells you how to avoid them or how to master them. She knows the advantages of a self-determined life. And she knows how to secure your independence in the long run.
Martina Flor has the gift of sharing her experience and knowledge in such a way that her energy and zest for life are contagious. Just like you, she loves what she does. Only she does it in her own rhythm. Sets her own priorities. And she describes all this with such infectious enthusiasm that you will want to follow her lead. At the same time, she gives you the tools that will make you a successful entrepreneur. Because you are nothing else than a freelancer. And that sounds very appealing, doesn’t it?
You can dream of your own studio for the rest of your life–or you can take advantage of the times when everything changes anyway–and jump!
You are already self-employed, but things are not going well at the moment? Even then you can benefit from Martina Flor’s experience. She speaks openly about pricing and proposal preparation, about limiting and extending usage rights, about financial management and time planning and all those things that sound dry but ultimately decide whether you are satisfied with your creative routine or not. Seldom do founders speak so openly about their experiences; often money and reputation are considered company secrets. Not so with Martina Flor. She shares her knowledge generously. And at a retail price that is no obstacle, especially as it is tax deductible.
Forward Magazine “The Odd One Out”
Issue No. 2 of the Forward Magazine “The Odd One Out” of the Forward Festival 2019
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The motto of the fifth anniversary of Forward Festival was dedicated to all creatives who can
not be forced into social norms. “At the Forward Festival, we want to encourage them to celebrate
their otherness,” explains Othmar Handl the background to the campaign.
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Including interviews with Mirko Borsche, Eike König, Max Siedentopf, Anthony Burrill and much more!
Now, please follow me – Eine kritische Designforschung
Critical design is a form of design research in which the designer has a fundamentally critical attitude towards society as well as with regards to his or her own discipline. The resulting design objects are supposed to stimulate reflection and create a critical awareness, but also corresponding changes in current social practices are intended. Critical design is able to solve social problems instead of just aestheticizing or reflecting on them. That this critical attitude is necessary is shown by the designer Susan Karrais on the basis of information graphics in their function of general knowledge transfer. Information is omnipresent, so information graphics are an indispensable instrument to process the flood of data in the contemporary “knowledge society.” The previously often unpopular task among designers has become a real trend in recent years. However, this only rarely led to a real qualitative improvement. Besides the still mostly missing theoretical reference framework, the conventional approach to simplification is the main criticism.
“Now, please follow me – Eine kritische Designforschung” (Eng. Now, please follow me – A critical design research) equally pursues the questions of orientation in the complexity of the world and its representability. In terms of critical design, the goal is not to find solutions but the identification of problems.
Marginalia
“Marginalia” draws our attention to the overlooked elements that coexist in carefully designed books. Removing the text and images from a selection of art books designed by Anja Lutz in close collaboration with the individual artists reveals the nondescript details: the margins, the edges, the backgrounds, the spaces between the lines …
Each book is unique in its choice of format, material, layout, composition, and rhythm. The selected pages underwent a process of transformation in which Lutz dissected them with surgical precision, layer by layer, removing their vital parts and revealing their skeletons–the actual support of the content. The results are filigree grids, fragments of images, and traces of the layout that form intricately layered compositions of voids, exposing the hidden relationships between the pages.
“Marginalia” is an investigation into the anatomy of books–the physical object, its materiality, and inner structure. It is an attempt at mediating the emptiness. The quiet and yet eloquent remaining spaces seem to have their own language–that of an abstract visual poetry of books.
“Marginalia” is a personal interpretation of the books designed by Anja Lutz with and for the following artists: Kader Attia, Sonia Boyce, Angela Bulloch, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Christine Hill, Hannah Höch, Hella Jongerius, Loriot, J. Mayer H., Laercio Redondo, Julian Rosefeldt, Lawrence Weiner amongst many more.
For more information about “Marginalia” please visit the Marginalia facebook page.