Fontstruct - create a font in 1 week

Type research

Having spent most of my career working with

and printing type i have finally been asked to

produce my own typeface. I have always

particularly liked the work of the constructivists

and the Swiss Style so i looked at the

following work in my research.

Here are so examples of constructivist type.

Russian Constructivism Before Constructivism there were many Russian artistic experimental groups including; Cubo-Futurism, Rayonnism, and Suprematism. It was in 1913 the artist Kasimir Malevich invented Suprematism. This was a nonobjective art characterized by symbolic positioning of squares and rectangles framed by negative space. Malevich rejected pictorial representation, instead looking to capture the "expression of feeling…"The artist also believed that to experience art you had to experience color. As Malevich felt with "Suprematist Composition," it was a, "symphonic arrangement of elemental shapes of luminous color on a white field which becomes an expression of pure color."

Russia at this time was in a state of turbulence, WWI and the Russian Revolution had ended by the 1920s. Czar Nicholas II was then assassinated,
with Russia going into a civil war. Amazingly, it was during this period that
Russian art grew and had an international effect on twentieth-century design and typography,Created by Vladimir Tatlin, Constructivism became an early Soviet youth movement whose aim was to encompass the whole spirit, cognitive and material activiety of a man, In 1921 the Constructivists rejected "art" and
instead became devoted themselves to industrial design, Artists like Tatlin and Rodchenko turned away from sculpture and painting to stove design and graphic design.and photojournalism.

The Constructivists declared themselves for the revolution. This constructivist ideal was best seen by the painter El Lissitzky, who has had a huge influence on graphic design, After being turned down by a Russian art academy because of his religious belief, Lissitzky instead went to an engineering and architecture school. His use of mathematical and structural properties had an effect on his art. In 1919, Marc Chagall asked Lissitzky to teach art at a school, 250 miles east of the Moscow. It was at this school that Lissitzky met Malevich another teacher, who had a large influence on Lissitzky. As seen in "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge," Suprematist design elements were transformed into political symbolism ("red Bolshevik against the "white" forces of Kerenski). Lissitzky saw the October 1917 Russian Revolution as a new beginning for mankind.Lissitzky felt that Communism and social engineering would create a new order and the new technology would provide for society's needs. Lissitzky called himself a constructor rather than an artist or designer, and he worked to bring a unity between art and technology, by constructing new objects for mankind. In his pieces called PROUNS (stood for "projects for the establishment – affirmation – of a new art"), Lissitzky wanted them to be "an interchange station between painting and architecture." And in his children's book "Of Two Squares" Lissitzky tells a fable about the cooperation of a black and red square in dispersing chaos and establishing a new order.Lissitzky traveled to Berlin in 1921. Postwar Germany became a meeting
place for eastern and western artists and their ideas, here Lissitzky made
contact with de Stijl, the Bauhaus, dadaists, and other constructivists. Germany had excellent printing capabilities enabling Lissitzky to develop his typographic ideas even more quickly. For in Russia, after the First World War there were shortages throughout the nation putting paper, type and ink at a premium. With Lissitzky's energy and willingness to experiment with the mediums; photomontage, printmaking, graphic design, and painting; he became the voice of suprematism and constructivism ideas to Western Europe.

Lissitzky Lissitzky's time in Berlin allowed him to spread the constructivist message through his frequent visits to the Bauhaus where he wrote articles and lectured. He also participated in some major collaborations. Lissitzky worked with Kurt Schwitters (dada/ merz) on a double issue of the magazine Merz in 1924. Lissitzky also worked with the editors of "Broom," a radical American magazine with topics covering new literature and art in 1922. Lissitzky also worked with the Pelikan Ink Company, doing ads and displays. Constructivist typography developed its own distinctive look – letters and words were at right angles to each other, they were framed by bold rules and borders printed in one or two primary colors. Lissitzky also experimented with montage and photomontage. December 1941, six months after Germany invaded Russia (WWII), Lissitzky died of tuberculosis. The Swiss typographer Jan Tschichold wrote, "Lissitzky was one of the great pioneers…His indirect influence was widespread and enduring…A generation that has never heard of him …stand upon his shoulders." The work of fellow Russian, Alexander Rodchenko (1889-1956) also stands out as dynamic, bold, and full of life. From 1910-1914, Rodchenko attended art school (Kazan) where he became familiar with Russian Futurism. He then moved to Moscow, and in 1916 met the artists; Tatlin, Popova, and Malevich. After the 1917 Russian Revolution Rodchenko and fellow artists became important leaders in the new experimental art that looked to industry and production as an inspiration. In 1921, Rodchenko began teaching at the reformed art school in Moscow, where he taught the fundamental principles of design with an emphasis on materials. And by 1923 Rodchenko moved from fine art (painting) to graphic design. The same year Rodchenko began collaboration work with the poet Mayakovsky on posters. Mayakovsky would supply the slogans while Rodchenko developed the visuals. It was with this poster design that Rodchenko developed a style of strong contrasts, blocks of bold color, arrangements with a strong diagnol emphasis, often contrasted with photomontage. Rodchenko also used a heavy, hand-lettered sans serif type that was also bold and concise, and imitated throughout Russia. Rodchenko Rodchenko did poster work for the theatre and cinema. He did the design for a magazine of the creative arts called LEF (1923-25) and later NOVYI LEF (1927-28) which translates to “Left Front of the Arts”. Rodchenko made important contributions in photomontage and printing with overprinting and kiss registration. Rodchenko was also one of the first to work with series graphic design. In a series, common design elements (color, type, arrangement) are used to bring consistency to the whole series – books, posters. During the 1930s Rodchenko worked on the journal “USSR in Construction,” but during the 1920s the Soviet government’s attitude toward the new/ experimental artists became more hostile, with many artists like Lissitzky defected to the west. Rodchenko remained in Russia but he returned to painting. The Stenberg Brothers, Vladimir (1899-1982), Georgii (1900-1933) Studued engineering, designed posters while at school. Became involved in the Constructivists movement as students. From 1922-31, the brothers designed sets and customes for the theater and contributed to the journal LEF (art journal of the left front.) The Stenbergs practiced in a wide range of media; sculptor, theater design, architecture, clothing, and shoes. But they excelled in their theater costume and graphic design. Especially in film posters because of the huge interest in movies in Russia and the government’s allowance for graphic design for the cinema. The innovative aspects of the Stenberg posters include; distortion of perspective, elements of Dada’s photomontage, an exaggerated scale, a sense of movement, and a dynamic use of color and typography. This style and these characteristics were imitated by many. Stenberg Brothers

Creating My Font

After researching on the many fonts influenced by The New Typography, i started to create my own typeface, using only squares and triangles with the help of grids and some measurement.

Similar to the other typeface i've researched, I avoided the decorative and eliminate non-essential elements and like the Architype Albers my font is never intend for text and was design for you in posters and large scale signs.

Chadfont

Swiss Style

Swiss graphic design and “the Swiss Style” are crucial elements in the history of modernism. During the 1920s and ’30s, skills traditionally associated with Swiss industry, particularly pharmaceuticals and mechanical engineering, were matched by those of the country’s graphic designers, who produced their advertising and technical literature. These pioneering graphic artists saw design as part of industrial production and searched for anonymous, objective visual communication. They chose photographic images rather than illustration, and typefaces that were industrial-looking rather than those designed for books.

Written by noted design authority Richard Hollis, this lavishly illustrated volume looks at the uniquely clear graphic language developed by such Swiss designers as Theo Ballmer, Max Bill, Adrian Frutiger, Karl Gerstner, Armin Hoffman, Ernst Keller, Herbert Matter, Josef Müller-Brockmann, and Jan Tschichold. The style of these artists received worldwide admiration for its formal discipline: images and text were organized by geometrical grids. Adopted internationally, the grid and sans serif typefaces such as Helvetica became the classic emblems of Swiss graphic design.

Showcasing design work across a range of media, including posters, magazines, exhibition displays, brochures, advertisements, books, and film, this essential book shows how many of the Swiss designers’ modernist elements remain an indispensable part of today’s graphic language.