78 | Graphic Design TheoryWe discovered that as increased space was inserted between letters, the
words or word groups became graphic in expression, and that understanding
the message was less dependent upon reading than we had supposed.
Our activities challenged the viewpoint of Emil Ruder and his followers. In
the mid-sixties he wrote a succinct manifesto, a part of which I typographically
interpreted for the cover of Typographische Monatsblätter, Number 5/1973:
“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information
in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this
duty. A printed work that cannot be read becomes a product without purpose.
More than graphic design, typography is an expression of technology, preci-
sion, and good order.”
Founded by Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann, the Weiterbildungsklasse
für Graphik, the international Advanced Program for Graphic Design, was
scheduled to begin in April 1968. Ruder’s heartfelt wish was to teach typog-
raphy, but because of additional obligations as the school director, he would
need a teaching assistant. He asked me, and I readily accepted. Tragically, his
unexpected illness and regular hospital confinements in Basel precluded the
chance of ever working together.
The first seven students came from the United States, Canada, England,
and Switzerland, expecting to study with the masters Hofmann and Ruder.
When I showed up as the typography teacher, their shock was obvious. Be-
cause of my training and radical experiments, and because we were around the
same age, the students began to trust me. Eventually, disappointment gave
way to curiosity.
The teachers agreed on common themes for the initial two years of
the advanced program, the symbol and the package. Feeling more confident
by the second year, bolstered by the students’ enthusiasm, I risked further
experimentation, and my classes became a laboratory to test and expand
models for a new typography.
It was a major undertaking to organize my extremely diverse typographic
ideas when I was asked to exhibit at the Stuttgart gallery Knauer-Expo in
December 1969. I designed eleven broadsides relating to thoughts and fanta-
sies about my life. One of them, entitled “was ich morgen am liebsten machen
würde” (what I would most like to do tomorrow), was a list of wishes and
dreams, and it has become one of my favorite works.
Accelerated by the social unrest of our generation, the force behind Swiss
typography and its philosophy of reduction was losing its international hold.
My students were inspired, we were on to something different, and we knew it.
[... ]wolfgang weIngart Two of
the eleven broadsides designed for
an exhibit at the Stuttgart gallery
Knauer-Expo in December 1969.
top: “Ich mache Typographie nicht.”
(“I don’t make typography.”)
below: “Was ich morgen am
liebsten machen würde.” (“What I
would most like to do tomorrow.”)