impersonal way of thinking was foreign to them. Exceptions. such as Lucian
Bernhard's posters. only prove the rule.
These artists too, for example Lucian Bernhard, were not without influence
on book design. Some of them have also designed new typefaces. based on
recent American designs. which try to imitate random brush strokes
(Bernhard-. Lo-. Glass-9nd similar types).
These various and varied influences make up the picture of today's typog
raphy. Type production has gone mad, with its senseless outpouring of new
"type!>"; worse and worse variations of historical or idiosyncratic themes
are constantly being drawn. cut. and cast. The two main directions of
typography before the war. in "books" and "posters," have now been joined
by a third. the "Arts and Crafts" kind, which playfully covers printed matter
with all kinds of pretty shapes in the belief that by doing so it achieves a
"charming" effect. The closer one looks at these three main tendencies of
typography, the more one is aware of hundreds of other lesser and lesser
tendencies. all leading in different -and always wrong -directions.
It is essential to realize today that the "forms" we need to express our mod
ern world can never be found in the work of a single personality and its
"private" language. Such solutions are impossible because they are based
on a false. purely superficial grasp of the nature of form. The domination of
a culture by the private design-concepts of a few "prominent" individuals,
in other words an artistic dictatorship, cannot be accepted.
We can only acquire a true general culture (for a culture of the few. as has
existed up till now. is no culture but a kind of barbarism) if we remember
the natural law of general relationship, the indissoluble oneness of all men
and peoples. and of all fields of human creativity. Only in degenerate times
can "Personality" (opposed to the nameless masses) become the aim of
human development.
Printers in the recent past - a period of decadence caused by the final col
lapse of a culture-had to submit themselves in their work to the whims of
a "book-artist's" private style. if they wished to make any sense in the use
of his types. As a result of this spiritual restraint, they could not achieve
free creativity. To these men today we offer logical. "non-personal" work.
using impersonal materials. which alone will make possible a free. imper
sonal creativity, a logical outcome of truly personal ability and a unified
form of life. a "style." Individualistic work. the "line" of the artist. is the
exact opposite of what we are trying to achieve. Only anonymity in the ele
ments we use and the application of laws transcending self combined with
the giving up of personal vanity (up till now falsely called "personality") in
elle
(Elle)
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