Taking Beatrice Warde’s 1932 text, The Crystal Goblet as a starting point, in this essay, I intend to explore notions of neutrality, transparency and invisibility in typography and graphic design. Written in 1932, and originally given as an address to the Society of Typographic Designers, Beatrice Warde’s The Crystal Goblet, or Why Printing Should Be Invisible calls for typography that is transparent, a “crystalline goblet which is worthy to hold the vintage of the human mind.” She states “that the most important thing about printing is that it conveys thought, ideas, images from one mind to other minds.” 1
My position is informed by my background as a fine artist and as a designer and from my specific interest in typography for books and print. There are certain differences in fine art practice and in design practice – as there are in fine art and graphic design education. The essential distinction I see between fine art and graphic design is that the former is about self-expression, whether that be an idea or an emotion, whereas the latter is about communicating a given message – it is the role of the designer to facilitate its transmission with as little ‘interference’ as possible.
The question of self-authorship and self-publishing by designers further complicates the debate: with no push and pull between client and designer, the relationship between form and content can often become unbalanced with form prioritised over content. In an essay titled What is ‘self-authored graphic design’ anyway? Steven McCarthy writes, “Self-authored graphic design is a dance between two central partners with varying degrees of differentiation: the designer as self and the content. The designer as self is recognition of the central presence of the designer as a voice and a vision in the process of form-creation and message-formulation. As an individual who balances emotional and expressive qualities with cognitive concerns, the designer’s personal views and convictions are integral ingredients to the definition of self-authored graphic design. Having a point of view from the vantage point of self is crucial.” 2
My design work does not prioritise my own self-expression: I aim for a neutrality of style — an idea that seems to align with Modernist ideas. One of the central tenets of Modernism is that form follows function and the function of a text is to communicate its meaning. In the 2007 film Helvetica, directed by Gary Hustwit, graphic designer Wim Crouwel said, “Helvetica was a real step from the 19th century typeface... We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn’t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface.” 3
However, Post-modernist thinking tells us that any design choice cannot be entirely neutral: design is subjective; selecting a ‘neutral’ style is loaded with other meanings; and those meanings shift with time, even the meaning of the typeface itself changes.
One of the early references for this essay was the title of graphic designer Phil Baines’ 1985 RCA thesis The Bauhaus mistook legibility for communication. 4 As I’ve read more widely around the subject of legibility and readability, I am beginning to understand the thinking behind Baines’ title. I am also starting to question my original position. The questions that I am trying to answer in this essay are: What is meant by the idea of transparency in typography? Where did that idea originate from? Is it possible to have neutral typography and, if so, what is its opposite? By answering these questions, I hope to understand more about my own design decisions and perhaps, ultimately, to answer the question Is neutrality something designers should be striving for?
The idea of transparent typography has its roots in the Modernist axiom of form follows function, as Warde writes, “not How should it look? but What must it do?” 1 Jan Tschichold was one of the first typographers to explore the principles of Modernism. In his manifesto, published as part of a special issue of the magazine Typographische Mitteilungen in Leipzig in October 1925, titled Elementaire Typographie, Tschichold writes, “The purpose of all typography is communication. Communication must be made in the shortest, simplest, most definite way.” 5 Tschichold was aiming for simplicity and clarity; in Britain, typographer, journalist and consultant to the Monotype corporation Stanley Morison, had similar ideas: in his pamphlet, The First Principles of Typography, published in Cambridge in 1936, Morison writes, “Typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidentally aesthetic end, for enjoyment of patterns is rarely the reader’s chief aim.” 6 Similarly, according to László Moholy-Nagy, an artist and a teacher at the Bauhaus, typography should be primarily considered a communications medium, and the “clarity of the message in its most emphatic form” 7 its most important principle.
But can typography ever truly be neutral? In their 1992 essay A Natural History of Typography J. Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton look at typography as a semiotic system as part of the broader practice of writing, one which the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure described as a sign system separate from speech itself: “He (Saussure) saw speech as the original, natural medium of language of language, while writing is an external system of signs (For example the alphabet) whose sole purpose is to represent speech. Writing is thus a language depicting another language, a set of signs for representing signs. Typography, then, is removed one step further as a medium whose signified is not words themselves, but rather the alphabet.” 8
Thinking about Beatrice Warde’s The Crystal Goblet, Abbot Miller and Lupton present the idea that the “alphabetic goblet is clouded with imperfections” – writing is inconsistent, sounds that represent signs are written in different ways. This inconsistency infuriated Saussure who resented the “alphabet’s refusal to patiently reflect its spoken referent, yet he had discovered that in writing, as in language, the realm of the signifier generates meaning apart from a pre-existing signified. And the same is true for typography’s relationship to the alphabet.” 8
If typography, as a faulty transmitter of information, inherently carries meaning other than the intended meaning, is it possible to control this meaning? Can legibility clarify or even fix this meaning? In an essay called Legible?, written in 1992, Gerard Unger talks about the idea of “Disappearing Letters”, of how, in the act of becoming absorbed in an engrossing text, the reader loses sense, not only of the world around them, but of the printed page itself: “First your environment dissolves and next the reading object disappears; or at least, both are placed at a subconscious level. When this type of artistry succeeds, the contents of the text flow directly into the mind of the reader.” 9 This is a wonderful description of the act of reading but it raises two points: firstly, book typography serves a different function from, say, poster typography – posters need to attract the viewer’s attention while book typography needs to be readable, an attention-grabbing display face would be inappropriate for sustained reading; and, secondly, this act of becoming engrossed in reading depends not only on ‘good’ typography but on content that is engaging: when form and content combine the text is able to flow directly into the mind.
But what if this process, this flowing of text, is disrupted? Wolfgang Weingart is a Swiss typographer who was trained – and later taught – at the Basel School of Design; his typographic experiments are based on an understanding of the basic functions – semantic, syntactic and pragmatic – of typography. Swiss Modernist typography had largely focused on the syntactic function but Weingart was interested in how far the graphic qualities of typography could be pushed and still retain its meaning and, more importantly, how certain graphic modifications of type could actually intensify meaning. In an illustrated lecture How Can One Make Swiss Typography? from 1972 and re-printed in the journal Octavo in 1987, Weingart writes, “One of the problems is our almost exclusive occupation with syntactic and semantic design problems in typography. But this is only an outward expression of something completely different. That is, the real problem of the meaning of a text. In my opinion one cannot make really good typography without exact knowledge and precise understanding of a text.” 10
Weingart’s work, although initially poorly received, achieved recognition in the 1980s when American graphic designers such as April Greiman (a former student of Weingart’s) adopted elements of his style as a basis for Post-modernist practice. Post-modernism uses post-structuralist theory that revises Saussure’s ideas by questioning the generation of meaning by the speaking, rather than the writing, subject: it disputes Saussure’s idea of writing as a faulty transmitter of speech. Around the same time, deconstruction, developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, disputed the idea of a single meaning in a text, instead suggesting that texts could be open to multiple interpretations. Derrida suggests that all text has ambiguity and because of this the possibility of a final and complete interpretation is impossible.
It becomes clear that once you have understood that meaning is constantly in flux – both in terms of language; the written word; in typography; and in the context in which the text is read, then a fixed meaning, created through neutral design or otherwise, is unachievable and any attempt by designers to secure this shifting meaning is an impossible task. On the other hand, if we accept that the meaning of a text is in flux, should designers be adding to this confusion by trying to create other meanings – possibly not those of the author – through design? Wouldn’t a neutral approach be more appropriate, allowing the reader to make up their own minds?
In an essay, Type and Image, published in Octavo in 1990, design historian Bridget Wilkins argues for a new synthesis between text and image, “Legible is easy to read. If it is easy to read it bypasses the visual potential of the message. People prefer the comfort of legibility. The passive, comfortable approach and negative visual interrelationships of type and image were firmly rooted by Stanley Morison in the perpetuation of left to right reading in the 1930s. Reinforced at that time by many, like Bartram ‘Legibility is of course, the sine qua non of a good type. It should go without saying. It is as elementary and vital a consideration as that the wheels of a car should be round or that a house should have a door.’ Well, sadly this still applies today, so that speed-reading is seen as a desirable skill; ignoring the visual communication of type and image.” 11
If type becomes image is there not a danger of it becoming decoration? Rather than making us look closer at a text, to look for multiple meanings, the text itself – and its meanings – becomes obscured by its unreadability. In the 1990s, work by designers such as Dutch designer and founder of Émigré magazine, Rudy VanderLans, pushed legibility to extremes. In an interview with Koga Toshiaki in Idea magazine, published in 2005, VanderLans answered criticisms that readers don’t read the text in Émigré – they just look at it, “Some people read the magazine from cover to cover, while others just looked at it. But that’s a kind of ‘reading’ as well. It’s a visual reading. And with Émigré we hoped to satisfy both kinds of readers. We just think that those readers who read the magazine on both levels got the most out of it.” 12
Talking about Émigré and its relationship to the Swiss style, April Greiman, head of the design department at the California Institute of the Arts says, “The International Style was based on a simple set of values, and we’re living in an age of enormous complexity. The tools that we have are much more complex and allow more levels of information. Émigré is one example, and a very good example, of a different kind of reading, a textural emotional reading. And that’s something the whole generation of Modernists just don’t even begin to understand.” 13
Rather than locating their practice in a dichotomy between legibility and expression that is rooted in Modernism versus Post-modernism, is it possible for designers to embrace elements from both traditions? Is it possible to make rational, legible design that encourages reading but that also makes explicit the multiple meanings inherent in a text? The ‘visual engineering’ of the English graphic design collective 8vo presented – and still presents – a way forward. 8vo’s output embraced functional problem solving in the Modernist tradition but with a stimulating visual output that was expressive and that enabled the reader to find meaning within the text. The thought processes that created the work are apparent in the final output and the design encourages the reader to think about those processes and, more importantly, the multiple meanings that are being transmitted. 8vo’s essay Synthesis, published in Octavo in 1987 still resonates today, “A new language of synthesis is needed; it must express the spirit of the age and not be afraid of tomorrow. It must challenge the hierarchy of romantic pastiche. ‘The new synthesis’ must express the relationship between meaning and appearance of type and image while pushing the frontiers of the latest technology; using structure and gestalt to go further than the ‘it’s done on a computer it must be amazing’ pictorial typo-wallpaper of today. It must reject letterpress-derived-dead-typography and all its attendant conventions.” 14
I started this essay with a very fixed position informed by Beatrice Warde’s promotion of ‘transparency’: that designers should aim for neutrality and not self-expression and that the role of the designer is to facilitate the transmission of a message. I now realise that neutrality is largely unachievable and that the meaning of messages cannot be fixed. I think the best kind of design embraces a rational, functional approach that gives the reader space to think, to experience reading as an all-pervading experience where the design – and the printed page of words and letters – disappear. This approach does not have to exclude some self-expression: a thoughtful but playful approach can enable the reader to discover meanings within the text. As Bridget Wilkins states in Type and Image, published in Octavo in 1990, “Grids, centred layouts and formulas are straitjackets. Legibility makes for comfort in reading instead of a new visual interpretation each time which enhances the meaning and comes out of the information. Reading should be enticing and inviting, stimulating the visual and intellectual senses.” 11
1. Warde, Beatrice (1930) The Crystal Goblet or Why Printing Should Be Invisible. In: Armstrong, Helen (2009) Graphic Design Theory. New York, Princeton Architectural Press.
2. McCarthy, Steven (1996) What is ‘self-authored graphic design’ anyway? printed on poster/catalogue accompanying Designer as Author: Voices and Visions. Kentucky, Northern Kentucky University.
3. Hustwit, Gary (2007) Helvetica film. New York.
4. Baines, Phil (1985) The Bauhaus mistook legibility for communication. London, RCA thesis.
5. McLean, Ruri (1975) Jan Tschichold: Typographer. London, Lund Humphries.
6. Morison, Stanley (1936) The First Principles of Typography. Cambridge.
7. www.designhistory.org
8. Abbott Miller, J & Lupton Ellen (1992) A Natural History of Typography. In: Bierut, Michael et al (Editors)(1994) Looking Closer, Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York, Allworth Press.
9. Unger, Gerard (1992) Legible? In: Bierut, Michael et al (Editors)(1994) Looking Closer, Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York, Allworth Press.
10. Weingart, Wolfgang (1987) How Can One Make Swiss Typography? In: Burke, Michael et al (Editors)(1987) Octavo Journal of Typography 87.4. London, Eight Five Zero.
11. Wilkins, Bridget (1990) Type and Image. In: Burke, Michael et al (Editors)(1990) Octavo Journal of Typography 90.7. London, Eight Five Zero.
12. Koga, Toshiaki (2005) Interview with Rudy VanderLans. From: www.emigre.com
13. Dooley, Michael (1992) Kicking Up a Little Dust. In: Bierut, Michael et al (Editors)(1994) Looking Closer, Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York, Allworth Press.
14. Burke, Michael et al (1990) Synthesis. In: Burke, Michael et al (Editors)(1990) Octavo Journal of Typography 90.7. London, Eight Five Zero.
Whitewash
In David Batchelor's ‘Chromophobia’ there's a great quotation from Le Corbusier’s ‘The Decorative Art of Today’:
“What shimmering silks, what fancy, glittering marbles, what opulent bronzes and golds! What fashionable blacks, what striking vermilions, what silver lamés from Byzantium and the Orient! Enough. Such stuff founders in a narcotic haze. Let's have done with it... It's time to crusade for whitewash and Diogenes.”
Le Corbusier’s position is shared with Adolf Loos, who writes, in ‘Ornament and Crime’:
“I have therefore evolved the following maxim, and pronounce it to the world: the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects.”
These two bombastic quotes made me think about my position on novelty and newness – on design that tries to stay ahead of the game by adopting the latest trends, a tactic that could be seen as a form of decoration. Thinking of how graphic design styles are ‘recycled’ and how Modernism has been re-appraised in recent graphic design practice, I wondered if Modernism itself had become decorative – another style to be used at whim?
In the first volume of ‘Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design’, edited by Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Steven Heller and DK Holland, there is a chapter titled ‘Modernism and its Malcontents’. In an essay called ‘Good History/Bad History’, the joint authors, Tibor Kalman, J. Abbott Miller and Karrie Jacobs introduce the phrase ‘Jive Modernism’:
“There’s a lot of confusion about Modernism these days, mostly engendered by the use and abuse of the term ‘Post-modernism’. Jive Modernism is not Post-modernism. In a way, it’s the opposite. In architecture, Post-modernism has come to mean the habit of affixing pre-modernist stuff – classical ornament – to the facades of otherwise modernist buildings. In graphics, the term has been used to mean just about anything, at least anything that departs form the most austere, Swiss-born, corporate-bred Modernism.”
“And in reviving Modernism, jive modernism is a denial of the essential point of Modernism, its faith in the power of the present, and the potential of the future.”
“Jive modernism has invoked Modernism as nostalgia.”
Adopting styles from previous eras has always been a part of graphic design practice. In the 1980s, appropriation (to adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspects (or the entire form) of man-made visual culture) could be found everywhere – in art, in music and, in particular, in graphic design. In an article called ‘The Age of Plunder’ published in ‘The Face’ in January 1983, journalist Jon Savage looks at the phenomena of appropriation as a form of “rampant nostalgia that acts as a major piece of weaponry for the militant New Right”. He continues:
“It is a characteristic of our age that there is very little sense of community, of any real sense of history, as THE PRESENT is all that matters.”
“The Past is then turned into the most disposable of consumer commodities, and is thus dismissable: the lessons which it can teach us are thought trivial, are ignored amongst a pile of garbage.”
If Modernism is not to become another style adopted meaninglessly and as decoration then we need to understand the original ideas that shaped it. Massimo Vignelli, in an essay called ‘Long Live Modernism!’, published in ‘Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design’, writes:
“Modernism was never a style, but an attitude. This is often misunderstood by those designers who dwell on the form rather than on the content of Modernism. From the beginning, Modernism had the urgency of utopianism: to make the world better by design.”
Design Q&A
A film, made in 1972, that expresses Charles Eames’ approach to the design process. The questions and answers were the conceptual basis of the exhibition ‘Qu’est ce que le design?’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais de Louvre in 1972.
Charles Eames (1907-1978) was an American architect who designed buildings and objects including toys and furniture, in association with his wife, Ray Kaiser.
Questions by Madame. L. Amic, answers by Charles Eames.
Q: “What is your definition of ‘Design,’ Monsieur Eames?
A: “One could describe Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose.”
Q: “Is Design an expression of art?”
A: “I would rather say it’s an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art.”
Q: “Is Design a craft for industrial purposes?”
A: “No, but Design may be a solution to some industrial problems.”
Q: “What are the boundaries of Design?”
A: “What are the boundaries of problems?”
Q: “Is Design a discipline that concerns itself with only one part of the environment?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Is it a method of general expression?”
A: “No. It is a method of action.”
Q: “Is Design a creation of an individual?”
A: “No, because to be realistic, one must always recognize the influence of those that have gone before.”
Q: “Is Design a creation of a group?”
A: “Very often.”
Q: “Is there a Design ethic?”
A: “There are always Design constraints, and these often imply an ethic.”
Q: “Does Design imply the idea of products that are necessarily useful?”
A: “Yes, even though the use might be very subtle.”
Q: “Is it able to cooperate in the creation of works reserved solely for pleasure?”
A: “Who would say that pleasure is not useful?”
Q: “Ought form to derive from the analysis of function?”
A: “The great risk here is that the analysis may be incomplete.”
Q: “Can the computer substitute for the Designer?”
A: “Probably, in some special cases, but usually the computer is an aid to the Designer.”
Q: “Does Design imply industrial manufacture?”
A: “Not necessarily.”
Q: “Is Design used to modify an old object through new techniques?”
A: “This is one kind of Design problem.”
Q: “Is Design used to fit up an existing model so that it is more attractive?”
A: “One doesn’t usually think of Design in this way.”
Q: “Is Design an element of industrial policy?”
A: “If Design constraints imply an ethic, and if industrial policy includes ethical principles, then yes—design is an element in an industrial policy.”
Q: “Does the creation of Design admit constraint?”
A: “Design depends largely on constraints.”
Q: “What constraints?”
A: “The sum of all constraints. Here is one of the few effective keys to the Design problem: the ability of the Designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints. Constraints of price, of size, of strength, of balance, of surface, of time, and so forth. Each problem has its own peculiar list.”
Q: “Does Design obey laws?”
A: “Aren’t constraints enough?”
Q: “Are there tendencies and schools in Design?”
A: “Yes, but these are more a measure of human limitations than of ideals.”
Q: “Is Design ephemeral?”
A: “Some needs are ephemeral. Most designs are ephemeral.”
Q: “Ought Design to tend towards the ephemeral or towards permanence?”
A: “Those needs and Designs that have a more universal quality tend toward relative permanence.”
Q: “How would you define yourself with respect to a decorator? an interior architect? a stylist?”
A: “I wouldn’t.”
Q: “To whom does Design address itself: to the greatest number? to the specialists or the enlightened amateur? to a priviledged social class?”
A: “Design addresses itself to the need.”
Q: “After having answered all these questions, do you feel you have been able to practice the profession of ‘Design’ under satisfactory conditions, or even optimum conditions?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “Have you been forced to accept compromises?”
A: “I don’t remember ever being forced to accept compromises, but I have willingly accepted constraints.”
Q: “What do you feel is the primary condition for the practice of Design and for its propagation?”
A: “A recognition of need.”
Q: “What is the future of Design?”
Democracy!
The democratization of graphic design through liberating technologies such as Microsoft Word has created a situation where anyone can have a go at being a graphic designer. Posters, leaflets, booklets and other documents can be designed and printed in black and white or full colour at the desktop and then distributed to a waiting world.
Andrew Keen, in an exchange with Emily Bell on the Guardian website in 2007, wonders “Is today’s internet killing our culture?”, decides that it is, and calls for “cultural gatekeepers” to safeguard our cultural heritage. As graphic designers, should we be worried about the cultural heritage of graphic design now that the ‘masses’ have the ability to produce quick, inexpensive design at the flick of a template?
New technologies have liberated not only the man on the street but designers too. Not so long ago design happened in several stages: rough designs on paper which were then translated into more detailed specifications; casting off of type; typesetting; revising mistakes; pasting up as artwork; scanning and preparing plates then finally printing. Any mistakes along the way were expensive to correct and the quality of the end product depended, to some extent, on the abilty of the designer to communicate their ideas to the various professionals who facilitated the design from initial idea through to printed product.
With liberation and the ability to revise designs at whim comes the double-edged sword of too much choice: with hundreds of typefaces to choose from and all accessible with a click of a mouse, is it not tempting to cruise through Font Book trying on typefaces like a rainbow of cheap Uniqlo t-shirts?
And what of default design? Most criticism of desktop design is centred on presets and default fonts – as if Times New Roman loses its cultural heritage in the hands of non-designers or that presets or templates haven’t, at some point, been designed by a designer. Of course, non-designers (and ‘real’ designers) produce bad work – text that’s difficult to read: too long or short line length; bad tracking or kerning; too much or too little leading etc. The paradox is that good typography, as Beatrice Warde notes in ‘The Crystal Goblet’ of 1932, remains invisible or transparent while bad typography shouts out its presence like a Versace Home wine glass.
In ‘The Rules of Typography According to Crackpots Experts’, published in Eye in 1993, Jeffery Keedy celebrates the “possiblities for the (imaginative) typographer that were unavailable ten years ago” and encourages typographers and type designers to look optimistically forward. Nearly twenty years later, many of the typefaces that Keedy designed such as ‘Hard Times’ or ‘Skelter’ and the designers such as Rudy VanderLans who used his work so imaginatively, have fallen out of fashion.
One of the problems of graphic design – and one that is directly connected to the democratization of graphic design and the attendant cornucopia of choice - is the constant desire by designers to re-invent it in ever-more self-referential ways. Take for example Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent’s Times New Roman, released to great aclaim in 1931 and used for over 40 years in The Times, then cast out in the wilderness because of its associations as a default type in programs such as Microsoft Word. The font is now at the tail-end of a revival which has seen designers use it because after years of the ubiquitous use of Helvetica, Times New Roman suddenly looks ‘edgy’ and new.
So, to return to my original question: are graphic designers “cultural gatekeepers”? Do we understand design better than the desktop publisher or do we merely have much better taste than him, setting styles and fashions that must be constantly revised in order to stay one step ahead?
Book Works Catalogue 2009
Book Works Catalogue 2009
Designed by James Brook for Book Works, 2009
'Books Work' by Karl Holmqvist
Poster | 597 x 841 mm | Printed on Chromolux paper by Xtraprint Ltd, London
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)