WILLI BAUMEISTER: Store advertisement (1926)
avoiding strong black-and-white contrasts are better-looking. We Euro
peans however have good reason to defend our European culture against
the invasion of American "cliche-culture," and must. if we wish to keep our
end up, devise a good design style of our own. In general, it is not the
heavy black-and-white contrasts in and among the advertisements them
selves that create a bad impression, it is the low quality of advertising
design in general. and above all how it is arranged on pages.
That advertisements differing greatly in size and form can be arranged
together in a really pleasing way is shown here by two pages from a
Japanese newspaper. Its design shows paradoxically that Japanese cul ture
is closer to the European than is the North American pseudo-cul ture. In