ADVERTISEMENTS
What was said about the type-poster applies to advertisements: the major
ity of today's advertisements are boring and ineffective because they have
not yet discarded the inflexible and unsuitable methods of out-of-date cen
tred typography. This way of working has become unconsciously wearisome
to printers; and just as in unloved things something is expressed of their
makers. so ordinary advertisements betray the compositor's lack of joy.
A few years ago one of the reactionary Munich papers made an attempt to
produce good advertisement pages (in the old typography). They gave the
design and arrangement of these pages to a fairly well known book-artist.
The advertisements themselves were of course centrally designed, and the
arrangement of each whole page was symmetrical. Some parts of the
advertisements. important lines of type, were drawn by the artist.
The intention of the artist was actually pretty well realized, within the pos
sibilities of the chosen form; but it must be said that such an attempt, apart
from being an interesting experiment. has no practical value.
Above all, the centred typography of earlier advertising is unsuitable for
our times because. being a preconceived external form. it tends to make
reading more difficult. or at least does not make it easier. as the New
Typography does. The speed at which advertisements normally have to be
made up makes it nearly always impossible to get good line setting on the
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EL LISSITZKY: Publisher's advertisement 1922. The "angle" on the left is the first
letter (G) of the publisher's name, Gel ikon (= Helikon).