The New Typography

in 1923 in an edition of poetry by Mayakovsky, the Russian Futurist. "For
reading aloud" (0/ja Go/ossa). from which we have already reproduced two
double spreads (pp. 62, 63, and 21 9). The first pages of the poems are
designed as pictorial paraphrases of their contents. as an optical expres­
sion of the spoken word. By means of a thumb index. as in a letter-file, a
particular poem can be quickly found.
Another Russian. Rodchenko, in the book Pro eta by Mayakovsky, in 1923,
was the first to illustrate the text by means of photography. With single
photos in different sizes a new pictorial unity has been created (photomon­
tage). The strength of design of the artist is here no longer expressed by
the individual line of a drawing, but by the harmonious combination of var­
ious truly objective (photographic) related elements. The Dadaist pho­
tomontages were predecessors of these illustrations. The Malik publishing
firm. founded in the Dada period, has made special use of these pho­
tomontages on their covers. With them. their creator John Heartfield has
provided models for contemporary book-jackets. He is the inventor of pho­
tomontage bindings. His Malik-bindings are the first of their kind.
Similarly, some modern-thinking artists in Czechoslovakia. especially Karel
Teige. have made a series of remarkable bindings for some Prague publish­
ers and designed the books themselves.
In Germany, L. Moholy-Nagy has become known as a typographic designer
through the Bauhaus books.
There is an important section of book production whose books. by nature
of their text. like Marinetti's Les mots en liberte futuristes or Lissitzky's "For
reading aloud," are not suitable for being designed. While there the typo­
graphic form is an independent (but inseparable) part of the whole work of
art. typography in these books fills a purely subservient role.
To talk of "Neue Sachlichkeit" (New Objectivity) in their conception is here
quite wrong, because objectivity in book design is by no means a new prin­
ciple. With books of this kind (i.e. novels. and most scientific literature) it
is not a question of making a really new kind of book (in a technical sense).
because the old book-form is perfectly suitable for this kind of book. and
will remain so until a better form is discovered. There is absolutely no need
for change, which would only be justified when a really new form is found.
In connection with typographic form. only modifications in traditional book
design are possible. However little significance they may have for the
actual content, they still seem to us to be important enough: just as the
characteristic book-forms of the Gothic. Baroque. Rococo. and Wilhelm­
enian eras remained virtually unchanged technically, so our own time must
create its own expression in the typography of the book.