The New Typography

and high-speed presses. all accelerated the decline. The tremendous

power of these inventions gave contemporaries new opportunities whose

possibilities were not grasped as quickly as they occurred. or perhaps were

Example of Mfreie Richtungft (Martistic printingft)

From the folder of the "InternatiOnal Graphic Des1gn-Exchange

of the German Print1ng Association" (1889)

not recognized at all. At the same time. new kinds of publications made
possible by the new inventions. such as magazines and newspapers.
emphasized the confusion in typogra phic design. When finally the process
line-block was invented. and reproductive wood engraving, then at the
highest point of its development. had to give way to it. confusion was com­
plete. This state of affairs in printing was however only parallel with a gen­
eral cultural collapse.
Germany especially. emerging victorious from the Franco-Prussian war. was
flooded with machine-made substitutes for craftsmanship, that suited its
megalomania which the victorious end of a war brought with it. and were