Social/Political Events

During his initial years as a type designer, Tschichold worked using the blackletter typography, which was traditionally used by the Germans at the time. However, he did not prefer them and thus recommended the more modern types such as the sans-serif typefaces and other new typography. When the Nazis gained power, they seized most, if not all of his works because they thought that they posed a political threat to both the party and the country. Although most of his earlier works were not seen by many people due to the political atmosphere that was present by then, Tschichold partially tried to convey political messages (Bachfischer, Robertson & Zmijewska, 2008). Since typography was about writing, the mixture of words in order to create images was constantly used so that particular messages would be conveyed.

                                                           One of his famous pieces “Die Frau Ohne Namen”

It is clear that Tschichold’s works had more of social influence than they had of political influence. In the above typography design, a couple of social activities and figure representations have been presented. The words “Die Frau Ohne Namen, Zweiter Teil” are followed with a number of socially related activities/representations such as the woman with a hat, the train, the child being held by the two people, amongst other images. The name “Frau” meaning “woman” has been related with various activities drawn seen in the images. The German statement means “the woman without names” which is a social representation of the diverse faces of a woman (MoMA, 2010).

Most of Tschichold’s works were seen in the books he designed especially when he worked at Penguin Books from 1947 to 1949. Since most of the books written by Penguin Books had a social aspect in them, Tschichold had to depict his works in a way that could portray the social aspect needed. Before his arrival at Penguin books, Tschichold had noted that the company did not incorporate any composition standards and rules. This is because the company relied upon diverse house rules and sample pages from printers who were contracted by the company. In order to bring legibility, consistency and balance in the majority of the books, which were accessed by the society, Tschichold decided to use classical typefaces for the texts that had long pages (Doubleday, 2006). These would be legible by people of all ages or the targeted audience.

            As earlier indicated, typography would be used in the majority of the arenas. However, Tchichold chose to dwell on the books. They were the most accessible by the society at the time. Additionally, paperbacks had become popularized as a tool of mass media and thus he took advantage of this tool to portray the new ideas he had concerning typography. Although he had wanted to portray his new ideas about the use of typography for many years, his ideas were used almost twenty years after his recommendations. However, they are still used to the present day both olden and new uses of typography.