Tschichold lecture, St Bride, London

[ktinkel]

This looks great. You Londoners are really lucky!

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Jan Tschichold at Penguin Books
A resurgence of classical book design

Richard B Doubleday
Lecture in the Bridewell Hall on Tuesday 6 June 2006 at 7pm

While Tschichold's asymmetric typography is familiar to most students of graphic design, fewer are familiar with his symmetrical book design work at Penguin Books in London. Although Tschichold had pulled away from the ‘New Typography’ and the ‘functional’ principles of the Bauhaus while designing books in Switzerland, his classical typographic roots had been firmly established nineteen years earlier and would for many years inform his approach to book design, particularly at Penguin.

This lecture presents an overview of the design contribution of Jan Tschichold to the Penguin imprint, looking especially at his exploration of ideas of ‘classical’ typography. It also serves to introduce Richard’s forthcoming book, Jan Tschichold, Designer: The Penguin Years, which explores the theme in greater depth.

Richard B. Doubleday is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Graphic Design at the School of Visual Arts, College of Fine Arts, Boston University and teaches in the London Summer British Programmes. He is both an award-winning designer and a writer on design. He was a contributing writer for the fourth edition of A History of Graphic Design, and is author of “Bird in hand: Jan Tschichold’s tenure at Penguin Books from 1947-49,” which appeared in the Print European Design Annual 2005. His research interests include the history of British graphic design and he is currently investigating the graphic arts journals of the Shenval Press: Typography, Alphabet & Image, Image and Motif.

Entry to the lecture, £5 or £3 concessions, on the door.

St Bride Library Bride Lane, Fleet Street London EC4Y 8EE
For further information, see the St Bride web site.