In his famous essay “Ornament and Crime” in 1908, the then fashionable architect Adolf Loos wrote: “The development of culture entails the displacement of ornamentation from the design of everyday things.” With this statement, he excluded many of the ornate decorative typefaces developed over the past centuries from being used in high-end design. Now, fast forward to today: Web 3.0 is full of nearly flat sans-serif fonts and classic roman fonts, which is why designers miss the frills of the typographers of yore.

Take advantage of the powerful expressiveness of antique fonts and give your graphics the vintage charm that's all the rage in print and online. From cowboy and Victorian styles to avant-garde and calligraphy, the choice is very wide. The fonts are grouped randomly, modern interpretations can sit side by side with (almost) authentic prototypes. All of them are available free of charge for use in private projects, just please remember to read the license agreements carefully.

Imitations of prints from wooden boards and poster fonts

This font, reminiscent of cheap prints from wooden boards, is not without its charm: it reeks of the faded posters of a run-down theater. The look is equal parts dark and challenging, suitable for graphics ranging from informal to frightening.

Circus Ornate by Dieter Steffmann creates the same mood as classic circus graphics, but retains its originality as an ornamental, eye-catching poster font.

Designed to emulate fonts such as Rosewood and Ponderosa, which in turn are reminiscent of late 18th century poster fonts, Coffee Tin brings vintage advertising graphics to life with a modern twist on crisp lines.

Another beautiful pseudo-antique font, created on the basis of 19th century poster letters. Typology foundry borrowed both the style and the name from the font developed in 1884 by D.T. Ames.

Another pseudo-antique masterpiece by Dieter Steffmann, Egyptienne Zierinitialen, transforms two-dimensional letters into luxurious three-dimensional carvings.

A lovely vintage masterpiece from Jester Font Studio.

Nasty is an aged “remix” created by Eduardo Recife from the Extra Ornamental font developed by House of Lime. Released in two versions, which Recife also recommends using in combination with each other.

Freely licensed software developer David Rakowski created this font in 1991. 17 years later, the harmony of monumentality and grace in its outlines looks like a sensation from the past that makes a lasting impression today.

Rick Mueller's Tuscan is one of his many vintage fonts, but it stands out from the crowd with its intricate outline combined with weighty simplicity. This font is reminiscent of antique poster letters without the extra flourishes.

Clearly inspired by Sideshow, developed by Harold's Fonts, Fusty Saddle is a hand-drawn and then digitized cowboy-style font. Bittbox offers you not only the typeface of its font, but also an explanation for it: “fusty,” as stated on the author’s website, means “old-fashioned in both essence and appearance.”

A digital version of a woodblock print with a distinct Wild West flair, designed by Matthew Austin Petty of Disturbed Type. The cowboy-stubble look of the font, the rough-hewn edges and sloppy surfaces of the block elements give this font a distinctly vintage, masculine feel.

The product of independent digital print studio Fountain, Azteak combines echoes of the past with dreams of the future. The mechanical base of this font is layered with various decorations, which evokes associations with science fiction films about an alternative future in the age of steam engines.

The name of this font is derived from the phrase "guardian angel" in French, and its capital letters are, indeed, crowned with figures of winged guardians. AngeGardien's combination of grace and solid contours, which it shares with other quality vintage fonts, may be something worth preserving.

An authentic 18th century Caslon typeface might now look like Caslon Antique: slightly worn around the edges, but still hard. This interpretation of the classic Caslon serif adds maturity and authority to the text without losing clarity.

Dominican is another artificially aged antique font, and a very unique one, the outlines of which are inspired by the special charm of old books.

An unusual, all-caps font, Old Dog New Tricks is interesting because the lower elements of its, in principle, classic serif letters are lowered below the line line. The combination of Art Deco style with antique echoes does not allow us to trace its origins with certainty, but, as the theory of “remix culture” teaches, unexpected combinations of components bear fruit in the form of truly unique phenomena.

Developed by David J. Perry in 2003, Cardo was intended for textbooks on classical languages ​​and medieval writing. The pointed letters of this font resemble both the handwriting of chroniclers and the inscriptions carved on stones.

The broken line and faded lettering could give it an unkempt appearance, but this font is durable enough to fit into any non-alignable markup to match.

Resembling the title font of P.T. Anderson's 2007 film, this example clearly demonstrates the admixture of cowboy style with traditional gothic typeface.

Olde English is an interesting example of a font that, despite belonging to one time and place, was easily associated with another. Although its style is reminiscent of medieval German Gothic fonts, Olde English is actually named after the Old English language written in insular minuscule.

The Schwabacher font received its name from the German village of Schwabach, and the style - from the calligraphic handwriting of the chroniclers. Although it was used only occasionally in Germany from the 17th century, it had a huge influence on the history of printing.

Fraktur was widely used in printing in Germany even throughout the 20th century, and comes in many variations. Fette Fraktur is a sedate, sparse version, legible for a reader accustomed to the serif font, without losing the distinctness of the outlines.

A font designed to evoke nostalgia for the early days of baseball, when stadiums were still named after nearby communities and people. It's like vintage baseball jerseys, flashy and tough in equal measure.

Wrexham Script is a denser and more angular font, inspired by inscriptions on sports equipment, with a touch of vintage.

In the abundance of imitations of handwriting presented on the Internet, the connection between the usual nameless typeface and its ancestors from past centuries, through whose use, and often their professional improvement, it was formed, is easily lost. ALS Script, proportionate and graceful, is a worthy continuation of its dynasty: its outline recalls the handwriting of official clerks of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Despite Mr. Loos's aversion to ornamentation, the elaborate decorativeness of Adine Kirnberg does not interfere with either its legibility or its applicability. With a subtle hint of antiquity, this cleverly designed cursive is suitable for more than just wedding invitations.

Straight italic, geometrically regular and ornamental in equal measure. The contours of the Ecolier have echoes of the Art Deco style, but they are apparently based on the subtle curves of calligraphy along with the skyward forms of creations of modern engineering.

According to designer Billy Argel, the idea for the Olho de Boi font was inspired by the first postage stamp issued in Brazil on August 1, 1843. The characteristic strokes and curls give the characters in this font the appearance of letters copied directly from old letters.

There may only be one International Pirate Slang Day, but why not write in pirate at least four times a week? This font is very aptly named: the squiggles in the style of pirate stories are reminiscent of water-blurred handwritten notes from a map of a lost treasure island.

Fletcher Gothic by Casady & Greene is a Art Nouveau font with crisp outlines and striking finesse: bring that special turn-of-the-19th-20th-century feel to your new-century graphics.

The curves of the outlines of this font are reminiscent of the floral motifs of the contours of Art Nouveau. Hadley brings the text to life, giving it a touch of antiquity without losing its contemporary relevance.

If Alphonse Mucha had designed fonts, he would have come up with Secesja. Intricately curved serifs and a floral pattern give the letters a joie de vivre vibe.

In the early 20th century, Charles Dana Gibson became famous for his pen sketches of women in corsets and high hairstyles, known as the Gibson Girls. Trinigan, with its wavy cross-sections and hourglass silhouettes, brings those classic images to life in print form.

At the beginning of this article, one could write some banality, like “Fonts are an integral part of design...” and other introductory words. But we will reject such a concept as an outdated form of existence.

The idea of ​​writing this article (or even a summary) came after a conversation about fonts - suddenly I realized that I had nothing but some technical knowledge on this issue, and this feeling haunted me for a long time, because knowledge is power, not knowledge is weakness. This is how the idea of ​​creating a compendium on fonts and everything connected with them was born. And we will start with a historical excursion into the history of fonts.

In my opinion, it would be correct to call the drawings of ancient people in ocher on stones the first fonts. Let me explain why. Actually, what the font itself is is the graphic design of letters and symbols that make up a single stylistic and compositional system. Depending on the complexity of the language - and we will take it as an axiom that ancient people had a very simple language - the font will be correspondingly simpler. There were few words, so each one could easily be replaced with a drawing. It's funny that now they're using more emoticons - we're back to where we started. Sad, but true.

So, the ancient people had a primitive language, probably not many words, which were successfully replaced by pictures, which, when combined with each other, formed sentences or messages that were understandable to the people of that time.

Ancient world and Europe

Time passed, the language became more complex, and pictures were replaced by graphic symbols of letters. First, this was figured out in Ancient Egypt, where they invented signs and symbols, which, although they conveyed some meaning/meaning/phenomenon, were not fully letters in the modern sense. However, they already had their own developed style, drawing and the like. The first alphabet was invented by the Phoenicians around the 11th century BC. e., which became the primary source for Greek, Latin, Cyrillic - this is where the alphabet appears in our story, and therefore fonts in our modern understanding.

The Greeks creatively modified the Phoenician alphabet. It turned out well, simple and minimalistic - it was built using simple lines that form geometric shapes: square, circle, triangle. Subsequently (but this is not certain) Greek became the prototype of the Latin letter, which had already spread very widely.

The oldest version of the Latin script was called "capital letter", and already had two variants of outline - square (beautiful, monumental) and rustic (popularly called “village”). In the first version, all the letters fit into a square, while in the second case, simplicity of writing with decorative elements was used. Yes, and the letters were diamond-shaped.

Later, in order to speed up writing, there appeared italic writing (which translates from Latin as “sloping”). The speed of writing was not entirely beneficial - the beauty of the letters was lost, and readability decreased.

Subsequently, the uncial was formed for correspondence - a calm, majestic letter with characteristic rounded shapes. Its letters were connected to each other by smooth lines, and the roundness of the letters came in handy for quick writing.

At the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, a new typeface with sharp strokes called Gothic began to take shape. It existed during the era of Gothic dominance in architecture and art. Gothic became widespread throughout Europe, and generally still exists. The German inventor Johannes Gutenberg, who invented printing, used the Gothic font in his books.

During the Renaissance (in the 14th-15th centuries), the learned minds of Italy and France revealed to the world something completely different from the Gothic font - Renaissance antique. Renaissance artists and scientists tried to give logical validity to this font by playing with the shapes and proportions of the letters. For example, a student of Leonardo da Vinci, Luca Pacioli, published the first rules for constructing a Latin font in 1509 - it was proposed to construct letters based on a square, using its diagonals and a circle inscribed in it. True, it turned out monotonous and lacked drive. A more interesting version of the outline was proposed by the German artist and geometer Albrecht Durer - he did not reinvent the wheel and also wrote letters into a square, but he divided the sides of the main square into 10 equal parts, and built a grid consisting of squares. For the thickness of the main stroke I took the width of one cell, the thickness of the connecting strokes is one third thinner than the main ones.

The transition to the era of classicism also gave rise to a new type of font called Classic Antiqua. Many artists worked on its creation, but Giambatista Bodoni, Firmin Didot and Walbaum (the name was lost in the vastness of German lands) can be singled out. The font is distinguished by high contrast (approximately 1/10), flows of rounded elements, and thin serifs. Fonts that appeared on the basis of serif are quite widely used in design work.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a number of types of fonts appeared - Egyptian, grotesque or chopped, serif-grotesque, ribbon serif. Egyptian font was distinguished by the same thickness of all lines and serifs. Grotesque(or also “chopped”) has the same line thickness of the letters, but without serifs. Based on it, a whole family of grotesque fonts was developed.

The 20th century introduced the world to new grotesque and sans serif fonts, which emphasized a new style in architecture and art - constructivism. Among the new fonts, Futura by Paul Renner, Peño Cassandra, Erbar-grotesque by Jacob Erbar and Gill-grotesque by Eric Gill are popular.

Russian land fonts

If you do not take the various versions of the Great Thousand-Year History of Rus', in which the Magi flew to Sirius and taught all other nations to write, but use the classical version of scientists (who, of course, hide everything), then the creators of the Slavic alphabet were the monk brothers Cyril and Methodius. It was based on Greek writing, and the letters themselves received fairly clear and distinct graphics. All this was called Cyrillic. The oldest Russian manuscripts of the 11th century were written according to special rules, called charter. Later, due to the need for faster writing, it was formed semi-charter. But the speed for copying books or composing correspondence was still not enough, and a new, faster option appeared with a self-explanatory name - cursive.

Since the 15th century, a special, decorative font began to appear - ligature. They were used to design titles, and the greatest flowering occurred during the reign of Ivan the Terrible - the first books printed by Ivan Fedorov had beautiful script engraved on wood. But starting from the 17th century, the art of decorating books in script gradually began to decline.

In 1708, Peter I introduced into mandatory use a new Russian civil script, which was a synthesis of traditional Russian and related forms of the Latin script of that time. In terms of shape, proportions and style, the civil font was apparently created on the basis of Western European serif. Over time, the font improved, unnecessary elements disappeared, and the style itself became uniform and strict.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, under the influence of the then fashionable Art Nouveau style, many fonts appeared that did not represent any particular artistic value. However, certain examples deserve mention - Elizabethan, Latin and Academic.

From the very beginning of its existence, the USSR took up the reform of Russian spelling: the letters that made it difficult to study the Russian language were removed, and the grammar became more simplified and accessible. At the same time, work was carried out on the development of typographic sets - all of them were brought into compliance with the State All-Union Standard (GOST), excluding only handwritten and drawn fonts that acted as an element of design or decor.

Modern fonts

There will be very little information here, although you could write a whole book. Why? Because we live at this very moment, and new fonts are appearing right now, before our eyes.

Modern font is inextricably linked with the concept of computer font (guess why). It is more formal than its predecessors, and is characterized by straight serifs and sharp contrast. The sharp contrast also lies in its weakness - it is great for headings and large inscriptions, but it is not very convenient for writing long texts.

A modern font is a file that contains vector and raster designs of CAPITAL and lowercase letters, numbers (from 0 to 9), punctuation marks (dots, commas and their combinations, question marks and accents) and other characters. There is a special standard for encoding all these characters - Unicode, which currently contains 136,690 characters for 123 types of writing on planet Earth - so that no one feels offended and deprived. But the standard font usually has 1-2 languages ​​(Latin + Cyrillic) and a set of punctuation marks and letters. However, it is worth noting that some fonts do not have letters, numbers or symbols at all, but consist entirely of images.

The entire variety of modern computer fonts can be taken and divided into 3 groups:

1. Mono(aka monospace font)
2. Serif(serif font)
3. Sans or sans serif(sans serif font)

Monospace fonts are different in that all characters are the same width regardless of the letters (your Captain). They are mainly used in development or terminals where the written code needs to be conveniently aligned.

Serif fonts(with serifs) are usually used in massive texts - in books, magazines and generally anywhere where there is a lot of letters. Serifs make it easier to link letters into a single line, thereby increasing the ease of reading text, which is generally the main thing. Here is the most popular - and easy to read - font Times New Roman is a typical representative of the Serif font.

Sans fonts- the direct opposite of Serif and the indicated serifs on the signs do not have. Their main purpose is for small bodies of text, such as headings and captions. Rarely used for body text, as long as it is small in size, because Sans fonts have poorer readability when placed in a large array.

Since we mentioned Sans fonts, we can’t ignore one rogue font, whose name is Comic Sans. The main rule of this font is to never use this font ☺. Actually a joke, since this font was used in The Sims and Undertale games, by Apple in advertising for iCards, and on the Canadian 25-cent collectible coins released in 2004. Checkmate, Comis Sans haters. However, the inept use of this font is often criticized. But inept use of the Helvetica font will not help much - typography is an art.

wives are perceived instantly, and the meanings contained in it. The designer does not distance himself from the author, he acts as a co-author, conveying all the information through the prism of his relationship to her. Core values: the priority of play and violation of norms, wit and outrageousness as an alternative to “beauty and harmony”, in the 20s - classical, in the late 70s - functionalist. Fonts are best “broken”, damaged - or any “bad” from the point of view of functionalists and classicists. But the exact correspondence to the conveyed meanings and emotions is not canceled. The movement originated in the same constructivism (futurism, dadaism) of the 20s, gave way to “serious design” in the 50s–70s, and reasserted itself in the late 70s in the directions of postmodernism. In today's pluralism it lives in its own genre niche.

Serious design

Originating in florid Art Nouveau, constructivism abandons ornamentation in favor of pure form. But constructivists do not abandon decorativeness, they simply find other means of creating it. The themes of construction and tectonics (expression in the form of the structure of a thing and the work of its construction) play in their works the same role that ornament previously played. Moreover, it happens that a false construction is demonstrated and played out.

Functionalism completely abandons decoration. An ideal solution to a function, embodied in a sterile form, ideally proportioned in all respects, becomes an aesthetic norm for decades. “Minimum means - maximum expression” is the credo of every designer and architect of this generation. This movement in graphic design is best represented by the developments of the Swiss school of typography, most notably Emil Ruder and Jan Tschichold, who were not only practitioners, but also leading theoreticians of this school.

And here, in Switzerland, already in the early 70s, works appeared that preceded the emergence of a movement called “Swiss punk” and which expressed the ideas of postmodernism in graphics.

In the late 70s, the “California New Wave” style appeared in American graphic design, also implementing the value system of postmodernism, which reconsidered both the relationship between function and form, and the concept of function itself.

Why is this movement called postmodernism?

IN In Western terminology, all styles in art, architecture and design, starting with Art Nouveau, are called modernism. Despite the external differences of the huge variety of currents, they have one paradigm that defines the design setting and common design values. This is the unconditional, absolute subordination of form to function, understood exclusively as an instrumental function. Human needs for self-expression, play, and laughter were not seriously considered. Of course, this approach had its own economic reasons: in difficult post-war times, it was necessary to resettle everyone, provide them with cheap and comfortable furniture and other things necessary for life. Since styles non-verbally express the values ​​of time, they exist simultaneously in all genres of design and architecture. And if you want to understand better any graphic style, look to things designed in that style by architects and industrial designers.

IN In the various stylistic trends of postmodernism, a kind of game is played with the consumer, in which the awakening of certain associations, emotional impact up to shockingness - communication - is more important than the economical implementation of the instrumental function.

Rice. 1. S. Chekhonin. Cover. 1923 /21/

Rice. 2. D. Mitrokhin. Cover. 1922 /21/

When we talk about pluralism, we only mean that “serious” and “fun” and “terrible” design can be appropriate in a specific design situation. Having understood it, the designer himself creates a system of design values ​​(remember the main stages of design: analyzing the situation, identifying the problem, setting goals, objectives and forming a design concept). But the level of skill must allow one to work in any value system.

This is a somewhat simplified, linearly presented history of the development of styles of the 20th century. In fact, it was not linear: during the times of dominance of one style, alternative movements also existed. The origins of postmodernism can be traced back to the Futurists (1909) and Dadaists (1916). We did not include here the Stalinist Empire style (“empire style”) of the 30s–50s in Russia, which came to us after constructivism and somewhat isolated us from the international “mainstream” (main trend).

But let's go back to the beginning of the century.

The picture in the field of typography and book publishing in Russia at that time was quite mixed. “The artists of the “World of Art” group are engaged in stylization, futurists create an entirely hand-drawn book in the spirit of the primitive and absurd, and, finally, a new style appears - constructivism. Traditionally, in Russia, since the 18th century, the design style and fashion for fonts were dictated by the foundries of the leading printing houses, and since at the beginning of the century printing houses in Russia were in decline, the main mass of book production remains outside of any style. Russian graphic designers usually drew fonts both on covers and in posters, which is why we have to say Chekhonin font (Fig. 1), Favorsky, Narbut or Mitrokhin font (Fig. 2). Drawn fonts have remained only one of the manifestations of the artist’s personal preferences and express only his individuality (Fig. 3). None of these

Rice. 3. K. Malevich. Cover. Lithography. 1918 /21/

Rice. 4. El Lissitzky. Poster. 1923 /21/

The new font seemed suitable only for display. “It took almost 100 years for the sans serif to become the most popular typeface of the 20th century, its symbol, contemporary throughout the century.” /21, P. 217/ In Russia at the turn of the century, two large typefaces were monopolists and competitors:

foundry firms - Lehmann and Bertgold. “The fonts produced by these companies remain the main ones in the assortment of Russian printing houses to this day. What we inherited from Lehman’s foundry were “ordinary” typefaces, developed on the basis of “Didot’s”. They were called ordinary because they were most often used for typing texts. The grotesques of the Lehmann company were mainly titular; later they were reworked and improved by Berthold. The Bertgold foundry was founded in St. Petersburg in 1804 as a branch of a Berlin company; fonts were produced for both Europe and Russia. The greatest achievement of the Berthold foundry can be considered the creation of Akzident-Grotesk (“accident-grotesque”) (1898–1909). The font was engraved in all styles, from thin to bold, as well as italic and title narrow, not only in Russian, but also in Latin. In Russia today, display grotesque remains the best text typeface.” /21, p. 217/ This font was especially loved by representatives of the Swiss school of design in the middle of the 20th century. The Cyrillic version of this font, Gothic 725, was developed in 2002 by Tagir Safaev (Fig. 5). In addition, G. Bertgold's company created such versions of grotesques as Wide grotesque (Fig. 6) and Light grotesque (Fig. 7).

Rice. 5. Tagir Safaev. Gothic 725. 2002 /4/

The designer's modern font palette contains digital versions of such wood-

literal fonts like Block, Newspaper black, Bold sans serif, Narrow sans serif, Reform.

Based on the designs of the Block font (designer Heinz Hoffman, 1908, Berthhold company), Tagir Safaev in 1997 created the Block font - “a bold grotesque of the usual German style” /4, p. 157/, intended for display (Fig. 8).

In 1997, based on the Newspaper Black (“Oak”) font from Osip Lehman’s foundry (St. Petersburg, 1874), intended for headings and displays, Tagir Safaev developed the font Bold Grotesque, which belongs to the group of old German grotesques (Fig. 9).

In the same foundry of Osip Leman, narrow grotesques were used for display even in the pre-revolutionary years Narrow Thin Grotesque, Bold Book Grotesque and Reform. In 1999, a remake of these fonts was Reform Grotesque

(Fig. 10) Tagira Safaeva (1999) was awarded the “Galina” prize and a diploma in honor of G.A. Bannikova “for creative research of Russian typographic tradition at the international competition “Cyrillic, 99” in Moscow.

In the West, type designers are actively starting to work on sans serifs of a new style.

Rice. 6. G. Bertgold. Wide grotesque. 1909 /21/

Rice. 7. G. Bertgold. Light grotesque. 1898 /21/

Rice. 8. Tagir Safaev. Block. Normal and narrow style. 1997 /4/

Rice. 9. Tagir Safaev. Fat grotesque. 1997 /4/

Rice. 10. Tagir Safaev. Reform Grotesque. 1999 /4/

Rice. 11. P. Renner. Futura. 1927 /21/

And is a registered trademark of Neufville, SL, and was used for both text and display typeset. Its Cyrillic version was developed by Vladimir Efimov in 1995 (Fig. 14). In this version "D"

And “L” have rectangular designs, which somewhat “calms” the overall picture of the text. Since then, the font has acquired numerous styles and variations. Paul Renner himself in 1932 supplemented it with a bold style, in which a slight contrast of strokes appeared with minimal visual correction. Now the typeface has 8 styles of different weights, each of which has an oblique version (Fig. 15).

Based on futura, in 1991–1995, Vladimir Efimov created the Futuris font, to which he and Alexander Tarbeev added narrow styles (Fig. 16). It also has 8 styles.

When we talk about 20th century fonts, we usually mean typefaces and styles.

190 tania, that is, sets of fonts, incl.

Rice. 12. P. Renner. Futura. 1932 /21/

Rice. 13. E. Gill. Gill-grotesque. 1928–1932 /21/

Rice. 14. Futura /4/

those who want different designs (styles). Meanwhile, until the 20th century, the typeface was developed and lived practically in one form. The origin of the concept of a typeface, that is, a family of fonts of the same style, design, construction logic, and differing in non-style parameters (saturation, slant, proportions) occurred back in 1501, when Aldus Manutius added italics to his font. Benefits of this additional typeface

The ability to make highlights in the text without disturbing the overall stylistic whole was quickly accepted. And the means to structure the text, visually indicating blocks of different content and significance, were developed in ancient books. Since then, italic styles have also been created for most text fonts: remember the elegant italics of John Baskerville.

At the beginning of the 19th century in England, bold fonts began to be used for typing headlines, posters, and announcements (the author of the very first one was the word-setter Robert Thorne, a student and successor of the famous word-setter Thomas Cotrel). But at that time these fonts were not used for highlighting in the text; they lived on their own in their display.

“The idea of ​​bold fonts as emphatic styles, in addition to the light ones used to type the main one, arose and was consistently implemented only at the end of the 19th century in America. One of the largest American type designers, Morris Futler Benton, at the beginning of his career was invited as the chief artist in the new company.

American Typefounders (ATF), formed

Rice. 15. Headset “Futura” /6/

Rice. 16. Futuris /4/

Rice. 17. Adrian Fruteger. Univers. 1957 /30/

founded in 1894 by the merger of 29 independent foundries on the East Coast of the United States. First, he had to somehow classify the numerous fonts that ATF inherited from its previous owners. Among them there were many similar to each other, because competing firms often copied a successful font that was popular and released it under a different name. Benton arranged these fonts in order of increasing saturation and united them under a common name. This is how the concepts arose: typeface (Type Family - font-

family) for a group of fonts that are similar in design, but differ in weight, proportion or slant, and type faces (Type Faces) for each font in this group. The first headset organized in this way was named Bookman after one of its components.

In 1896, Benton began work on the first typeface, conceived as a complete typeface. Using a pantograph engraving machine invented by his father in 1884, Benton developed more than 20 related styles (italic, narrow, bold, etc.), based on the designs of the Cheltenham typeface by architect Bertramy Goodhue. The typeface was completed only in 1911, but thanks to its success, at the beginning of the century it caused a lot of imitations in America and Europe, including our Academic typeface (1910) - the Cyrillic version of the font

Berthold Sorbonna, 1905).So, between pro-

In fact, in the process of creating bold fonts, the profession of a type designer was born, separating from the professions of engraver, puncher, wordsmith, printer and

other typographical specialties." /6,

The standard set of styles in a modern typeface “suggests, in addition to straight light and italic, the presence of at least one bold style, which serves for headings and semantic highlighting in the text. However, as a rule, a modern type designer also develops bold italic. In addition to these main four styles, in order to expand the scope of a font, it is often necessary to consider the creation of bold and extra-bold styles.” /6, p. 74/

Vladimir Krichevsky calls the Gill grotesque “one of the most antique grotesques” and refers it to the “golden fund” of sans serifs.” /5, P. 40/ Like Futura, Gill-grotesque (Fig. 13) from the inside

initially had two outlines: normal- Rice. 18. H.M. Miedinger. Helvetica. 1957 /21/ new and greasy. Proportions Gill-grotesque slightly wider, and compared to the “slender” Futura, the letters have a somewhat “squat” appearance. The normal font is somewhat richer, and the font

fat - lighter than in Futura.

Just like Futura, created a little earlier, it is built according to the laws of pure geometry, but the junctions of diagonals and verticals in it are softened by a cut. Erich Gill gives two variants of the style “M” (with beveled and straight main strokes) and lowercase “a” and “g”, which still shows his commitment to the serif: the thickness of the rounded elements is not the same, it is determined by an imaginary pen, which allegedly written “a”, “e”, “g”. The letters “R” and “C” also deviate from the geometry.

Swiss Adrian Fruteger became the first designer to systematically design a polytypeface - a typeface with a large number of interdependent styles (21), while simultaneously creating an ideology and system for indexing styles within the polytypeface. The famous typeface Univers (Univers) appeared in 1957 and

The Renaissance never expanded the original form of the font. Didot, on the contrary, put forward the idea of ​​a series of fonts - narrow, wide, bold, thin, etc.

In the 19th century A huge number of all kinds of fonts of a wide variety of designs were created. In England, at the beginning of the century, a characteristic type of font appeared with extremely thin additional strokes and at the same time extremely bold main ones.

This is the so-called bold sans serif by Thorne (1803), followed in 1824 by an even bolder type. This font should not be confused with grotesque fonts in the modern sense of the word. Currently, we call fonts of the ancient type (chopped, piano grotesque, etc.) sans serifs.

The appearance of the Thorne font is quite natural. Its appearance in England is just as natural. Until the end of the 18th century. There was no difference between book, newspaper and advertising fonts. Both the newspaper and the flyers were printed in the same simple font. With the industrial revolution, a special style of design for newspapers, advertisements and displays began to be developed, different from the book style. This special design style also required special, specific fonts.

The instigator was England as the country with the most developed industry. Continental Europe bought English cars and copied English fonts. France, Germany, Holland, Spain have released a number of fonts. Bold fonts of various designs appeared, corresponding to the designs of light fonts.

The appearance of grotesque fonts (in the modern meaning of the word) dates back to the first half of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the 19th century. the so-called “Egyptian” font appears with thicker sections perpendicular to the main bold strokes.

A variation of the Egyptian script is the Italian script, very common during the First Empire in France. Egyptian and Italian fonts were also widely used during the Romantic era.

“Ancient” fonts also appeared, so named because their designs were borrowed from Greek inscriptions of the 6th-7th centuries. BC uh..

The appearance of Egyptian and ancient fonts is also natural. It was caused by the needs of a new printing technique - lithography, which, as is known, arose at the very end of the 18th century. and widespread in the 19th century.

To write the typeface to accompany the lithographic design, letters of a simple, clear design that met production requirements were required.

The creation of lithographic practice includes both “hair” and “skeleton” fonts. They were primarily fonts for captions to drawings by Raffet, Charlet, Daumier, etc. Then they moved into title pages of the Restoration and Louis Philippe eras. These fonts combine the features of New Antiqua and Egyptian.

During the 19th century. The type industry is growing enormously. Fonts with “voluminous” letters, decorated in a variety of ways, are appearing. In some fonts, the letters are depicted as if lying down.

In the era of romanticism, when interest in the Middle Ages arose everywhere (which was also reflected in the neo-Gothic style), there was again a tendency towards Elsevier type fonts. Word writers imitate Jenson's and Garamon's fonts, which share success with Didot's. However, Elsevier letters require those additions that are firmly rooted in printing practice: bold, bold fonts.

Thus, the Latin script was created. This font is distinguished by increasing the thickness of strokes and clarifying the shape of the letters, which is given greater dryness.

The Latin script should not be identified with our Latin typeface.

Decorated fonts of the first half of the 19th century. very different in their artistic qualities. Many - but by no means all of them - bear traces of high craftsmanship.

The situation was different at the end of the century, especially in the 90s, and also at the beginning of the 20th century.

Competition considerations force printers to create more and more new designs. Foundry catalogs show a huge number of fonts used in typographic practice. However, fonts are often striking in their tastelessness.

The fonts of this era are largely imitative. No new forms were created that would go down in history.

At the end of the 19th century. the problem of creating an artistic font is again put in the spotlight in connection with a new formulation of issues of book design. This movement is started by W. Morris (it was discussed in more detail earlier). In 1894, Morris drew and cut his “golden font,” the main features of which were borrowed from Jenson’s antique.

The first three decades of the 20th century. can be called one of the most prolific eras in the history of type.

If we try to group all text fonts created in the 20th century according to stylistic criteria, we can establish the following groups: 1) fonts that repeat classical forms, 2) grotesque fonts, 3) decorative fonts, whose goal is not readability, but “beauty”44 and intricacy, and 4) handwritten fonts.

Vladimir Krichevsky

graphic designer, art critic

The reader is offered the second part of the article written by Vladimir Kri-chevsky, the author of the famous books “Ti-po-gra-fi-ka in terms and ob- ra-zakh", "Printed pictures of re-in-lu-tions", "Po-e-ti-ka re-production-tions", "Mo-dern(b) in pe-cha-ti", is-sle-do-va-te-lem of the Russian graphic design of the XX century. The first part of the article was published last year.

"Typo" versus "lito"

As graphic techniques, typography and lithography are old competitors.
The unprecedented revival in typography of the 19th century is indirectly related to the invention and development of lithography. “When lithography, in addition to preparing new samples, which became necessary in the hostel due to the convenience of execution, began to take away from the printer his old works, to which he had long been accustomed, the latter gathered his courage and rushed into battle with his sister, into a battle that became more and more cruel,” as it was written in 1900 in a popular manual on accidents.

Indeed, many typefaces and ornaments were then created in the image and likeness of lithographed ones, and along with elaborate letters, whimsical forms of constructing inscriptions were also borrowed. Oval, sinuous, broken, oblique, transverse lines have become commonplace. Metal typesetting material was subjected to a certain amount of violence, which gave rise to talk about the decline of typographic art. “This is just a deceptive imitation of lithographic effects through typography, an imaginary victory of typography over lithography,” noted Jan Tschichold, commenting on a French typographic album of 1862.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the “decline” began to be felt even more acutely, and the futurists seemed to have decided to take revenge for the alleged defeat of lithography, abolishing typography, figuratively speaking, with the stroke of a lithographic pencil: from pen to print, bypassing typesetting.

There was, of course, another meaning to this: the desire to bring the textures of text and drawing as close as possible, concern for conveying the “movement of the soul” of the writer, and finally, the tempting opportunity to concentrate the entire graphic process in the hands of the artist.

"Four from the attic." Lithographed almanac album with poems by N. Rudin and A. Reshetov and with eight lithographs - four by S. Gerasimov and four by N. Chernyshev. Moscow, 1920.

"Four from the attic." Lithographed almanac album with poems by N. Rudin and A. Reshetov and with eight lithographs - four by S. Gerasimov and four by N. Chernyshev. Moscow, 1920.

"Four from the attic." Lithographed almanac album with poems by N. Rudin and A. Reshetov and with eight lithographs - four by S. Gerasimov and four by N. Chernyshev. Moscow, 1920.

"Four from the attic." Lithographed almanac album with poems by N. Rudin and A. Reshetov and with eight lithographs - four by S. Gerasimov and four by N. Chernyshev. Moscow, 1920.

Protesting against the supposedly cold and depersonalizing typography, some (Larionov, Goncharova) used almost their own handwriting, others began to force the negligence and infantilism of the letter, trying to write as obliquely and “scribbled” as possible (Kruchenykh was the most successful in this), while others already “ lino" engraved on linoleum, not trying to exceed the class of work of schoolchildren with erasers, still others invented deliberately strange "printscripts" (like, for example, Kamensky in the "reinforced concrete" of the Tiflis collection of 1918).

The artistry of these experiments should not be overestimated: some authors were “stuck” between lively and deliberately clumsy handwriting, thereby proving that anti-calligraphy requires calligraphic acumen ( Blew up 1913, Te li le or, for example, Khlebnikovsky Izbornik works by P.N. Filonova both 1914).

Alexey Kruchenykh. Collection of poems “Blown Up”. St. Petersburg, 1913.

Alexey Kruchenykh. Collection of poems “Blown Up”. St. Petersburg, 1913.

Alexey Kruchenykh. Collection of poems “Blown Up”. St. Petersburg, 1913.

A short excursion into futuristic “lithowriting” is needed to highlight
achievements of several heroes who preferred the set.

Refusal to dial is a strong “one-time” gesture. What was offered in return can be found in the drafts of ardent authors (at least Pushkin), and in the notes of sloppy students. Those who chose the set had to break its age-old foundations and create "typographic revolution", remaining within the range of technical techniques and materials of typography.

Numerous books by the Kruchenykhs were published both in “autographed” and typesetting form. Comparing two versions of it Patent leotard(1919) hectographed and typographic (I. Zdanevich), J. Janecek concludes: “The antipodes of publishing art are united under one name: minimal modest, handmade, almost childishly artless booklet and maximum take-off (a tour de force) of typographic skill."

To capture the charm of even the simplest set, it is useful to compare two of Kamensky’s opuses, similar in composition and flavored with a large letter “K”: handwritten Blade from the 1918 collection and typesetting Stone from Vesneyanki sounded (1918).

Vasily Kamensky. Handwritten "Blade" and typewritten "Stone", both 1918.

“Typo” is more valuable than “lito”, just as overcoming a material is more valuable than refusing it, just as a typo in the logic of the futurists is more valuable than a typo. It seems to me that the task of the “typofuturists” was more difficult, and their work with text was brighter and more radical. Breaking all sorts of norms, they approached the cradle of modern typography, but at the same time adapted the old experience that they opposed. Once again I am convinced of the fruitfulness of the “wedge by wedge” method.

"The temptation of posters"

So in the collection Sofia Georgievna Melnikova. Fantastic zucchini
(further just Fantastic zucchini) named section of the poetess Tatyana Vechorka. Poems about theater and not futuristic. But in the typographic context of the collection, a couple of words on a completely clean spread can easily be turned into the formula for the content of an article on typography.

Spread from the collective collection “Sofia Georgievna Melnikova. Fantastic zucchini." Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Artists who can read "on the scales of a tin fish"<...>calls of new lips,” supporters of “everythingness” (and “nothingness”) how could they not be inspired by printed ephemera? And not only the largest of them - posters, but also all sorts of tickets, labels, advertisements. For example, advertisements from the “Cinemazine” noted by Vladimir Polyakov: “We just have to open any issue of this magazine<...>how we find ourselves immersed in a veritable laboratory of experimentation with all sorts of forms of typographic type. We are talking, of course, about film advertising, which occupied almost half of the magazine. Noteworthy is not only the different scale and variety of fonts, but also their unique arrangement on the surface of the sheet, which even included diagonal and circular shapes. Given the attention with which the Futurists treated all manifestations of mass taste, it is difficult to expect that they could pass by such an unusual source.”

Is he really that unusual? After all, Polyakov, in essence, gives a description of the eclectic and rollicking style of typography of the early 20th century, taking it in its essence.

This state was perhaps best conveyed by 17 nonsense guns I. Terentyeva (1919). Janeček finds his (or his works?) typography “relative (relative to literature. VC.) arbitrary". It is all the more interesting within the framework of our topic: divorced from literature itself, typography becomes “as such.” Each instrument (page), including the 13th, which is “never used,” is a poster or, taking into account the disproportionately large letters and tinted paper, a found fragment of that same poster from the beginning of the century.

Igor Terentyev. "17 nonsense guns." Tiflis, 1919.

Igor Terentyev. "17 nonsense guns." Tiflis, 1919.

Igor Terentyev. "17 nonsense guns." Tiflis, 1919.

Igor Terentyev. "17 nonsense guns." Tiflis, 1919.

There was no other choice. It was necessary to overthrow the foundations by being tempted by what was being overthrown. The infancy of typographic modernism was manifested in the repetition of the forms of “decline” and the Art Nouveau style, but in some kind of roughened, reduced, parodic form.

This applies least of all to the Tiflis editions, but the covers and title pages of most typeset futuristic books of the mid-10s resemble ordinary title pages in composition. The same centric layout and three-part vertical division, the same line-by-line mixing of different fonts. But there is some kind of overtone or, to use the favorite word of futurists, a shift: a literal shift of some element to the side (for example, on the cover Four birds(1916) the picture and information about the place of publication moved to the sides), then a shift of the entire symmetrical structure from the axis of the “pictorial” surface (as in Zaumnaya Gnig, 1915), then everywhere vertical displacement of the title from the noble optical center; That English string, and even purple ( Dead moon, 1913); then the emphasis on the non-main line (the stamp “futurists” in a number of publications), then, finally, the special, dissonant design of the title itself (too constructivist, in letters of different fonts or one, but defiant: Izbornik, Ryav! Gloves both 1914, Secret vices of academics 1916, Cherubs whistle 1919 and a number of others).

Kruchenykh A., Alyagrov R. Abstruse rot: color engravings by O. Rozanova. M., 19151916.

Collection of poems by D. Burliuk, G. Zolotukhin, V. Kamensky and V. Khlebnikov “Four Birds”. M., 1916.

Kruchenykh A. Secret vices of academicians. 1916.

Collection of futuristic poems and prose “Dead Moon”. M.: Publishing house of the First Journal of Russian Futurists, 1914.

Terentyev I. Cherubs whistle. 1919.

And all this I emphasize once again while maintaining the old layout scheme! In the external design of futuristic books, the skinny title page seemed to be crossed with a flashy poster. The result of the crossing showed both poetic indifference to form and beneficial (for that typographic era) unprofessionalism, confirming the “interference” of poets and artists in the affairs of typesetters and printers.

In five to ten years, having joined the constructivist camp, some former futurists will begin to despise the realities of pre-revolutionary typographic culture. But for now, even the most ornate modern fonts were used. The name of Alexey Kruchenykh on the title of the collection Mares' milk(1916) in the infamous Geisha font. In a modern context, this may have looked charming. Here there is a desire to confuse typographic meanings, however, together with some kind of vicious admiration for the typographic realities of the time.

Futurists knew his font palette. And among the things that inspired them, there were probably also samples of typefaces published by both foundries and all self-respecting printing houses. The pages of these rare publications are filled with scraps of phrases and words typed in different, sometimes unnaturally large fonts. Why not ready-made futuristic creations?

And since I’ve come to the attributes of a printing house, I can’t help but remember the realities of the printing process itself. For test and adjustment sheets, waste paper is often used, and after several runs, even different cultural layers can lie on top of each other in layers of paint. These sheets make designers bow to the graphic genius of mere chance. So, one of the early experiments in poeticization of superimposition when printing book covers by A. Kruchenykh Milliork(1919) and Patent leotard. Printed in two runs from one typesetting printing plate and rotated at an indirect (!) angle, these works by Ilya Zdanevich brilliantly anticipate the era of constructivism. However, I had to run to Tiflis again. In the Moscow and Petrograd “standard publications”, if occasionally something out of the ordinary happened, it was more likely on ordinary pages that fell under a much more traditional cover.

Alexey Kruchenykh. Covers of "Lacquered Tights" and "Milliork", both 1919.

One of the revelations pages of Mayakovsky’s book Vladimir Mayakovsky: tragedy(1914). Both Janecek and Susan Compton attribute its design to David and Vladimir Burliuk. And the second one pays attention to “the most influential of books as objects of design,” and the first, in accordance with his profile, again, as in the case of Terentyev, captures the decorative value of large and bold letters interspersed throughout “without any expressive or practical purpose.” Both authors do not notice the “elephant” of spatial organization. But spaces and margins mean no less to a typographer than “bugs” letters. In "Tragedy" there are two breakthroughs into modern typography. Firstly, the poetic lines are typed with a single and such large leading that no too large letter will violate the typometrics (as will happen in Kamensky). Secondly, the stripes on each spread are not mirrored, but figuratively symmetrical. This means that an extended field with abundant marginalia appears all the time to the left of the text, regardless of the odd-even factor of the page.

We must pay tribute to this invention (?), which was also used in some other editions of poetry collections, where very short lines alternate with long ones. In this case, there is a great reason to type out the poems at the same distance from the left edge of the page. Previously, it was customary to center each poem in accordance with the average width of the “spot”.

At least one more typographic revelation is associated with the names of Mayakovsky and D. Burliuk: the only issue of the magazine Took: futurist drum(1915). Average pages, but what a cover! At the top edge there are four letters typed by a real poster (wooden) Herald (this typeface is a symbol of the era) measuring 8 squares and printed on purely wrapping paper. The typographer (maybe Mayakovsky himself?) is seduced by the poster and at the same time overcomes the temptation with the utmost laconicism of his solution. Height I took it(Kamensky managed to inflect this verb) did not take it in Russia, it seems, no one else.

Took: Futurist Drum. Pavlograd, 1915.

Font assortment and “non-linear”

No, not an image I took it, and something just the opposite pops up when you first think about Futurist typography.

Changing the font when moving from line to line of a display item hardly seems strange to anyone. Moreover, it did not seem so at the beginning of the century. The futurists took the next two steps: they “mixed” the old composition and thereby achieved the closest proximity of letters of different typefaces, styles and sizes within one line and even a separate word. The composition was crushed and turned into a motley texture. As a result of the connection, the letters stopped holding the baseline and began to jump. It’s not far from a mixture of jumping letters to “non-linearity.” With this wonderful word, A. Kruchenykh designated the free flight of letters and words in the hectographed brochure of the same name (1917). A pictorial composition from verbal material is equivalent, according to Yu. Gerchuk, to freeing the text from a linear, time sequence. In combination with a font mixture, this is the vector of development of futuristic typography.

A striking example of an assortment of fonts, also enriched with non-linearity, are the posters for the Futurists’ tour of Russia in 1914. At least two of its variants are known: Kazan and Tiflis. With an ordinary arrangement that coincides before application, they differ only in curiously different mixtures. This apparently means that the Kazan version was a model for the Tiflis one. It was required (or a different assortment of fonts in the printing house required) to change it at the “molecular” level, so that in two posters, even with some coincidence of the font rhythm (!), it is difficult to find at least two completely matching letters. Changing the mixture does not even change the texture of the typesetting, and thus, despite the titanic work of the typesetter, the appearance of the poster has not changed significantly.

From observing student experiences, I know that not very promising designers start straight away with an “experiment”, and this is nothing more than a font mixture from magazine clippings. Not everyone knows about futuristic “tricks”. This is simply the most naive and easiest way to achieve some effect. Just as a living being (according to Darwin) goes through all stages of the evolution of species in its development, so the comprehension of the expressive qualities of type begins with a return to the early stage of embryonic development of modernist typography.

Kamensky (or his assistant) acted this way, but, being a pioneer, he never returned. Famous books Naked among the clothed(1914) and especially unleash an avalanche of amazing qualities on the viewer. A cover with a bleed label and a paired contrast between the title (above) and the author's (bottom) groups of text will do credit to any postmodernist. It’s all here at once: the fifth corner, obtained by eliminating the “fourth”, and the square format, and wallpaper, and the apotheosis of non-linear several poems, where instead of “line meanings” there is a mosaic of “word blocks” of different shapes and sizes. However, only two words can be said about the character of the typeface: font mixture. Devoid of a background (everything is highlighted), rather amorphous, such a mixture is by no means explosive for the eye. Hearing from the author about “clarity” and “reading like notes” is quite strange. Janecek's detailed analysis also does not seem convincing. The typography of “reinforced concrete” poems indicates more enthusiasm than graphic
discipline.

Vasily Kamensky, Andrey Kravtsov. Naked among the clothed. 1914.

Vasily Kamensky, Andrey Kravtsov. Naked among the clothed. 1914.

Vasily Kamensky, Andrey Kravtsov. Naked among the clothed. 1914.

Kamensky’s rival Ilya Zdanevich spoke very skeptically about the unusual book: “In some respects it is curious, but hardly more so, since such a creative technique devotes too much space to the eye, that is, it looks in the wrong place and therefore is unlikely to find much.”

In ten years, Ilyazd will devote even more space to the eye.

"Scribblers set"

On the title of the book by Ilya Zdanevich Lidantu headlights Following the words “Naum Granovsky’s apple” (this collage, by the way, looks somewhat alien to the book) are the words included in the title of the chapter. For the first time in the practice of Russian futurists, typographic authorship was so definitely stated: there remains no doubt about Ilyazd’s second, and perhaps main, profession.

“I spent many hours of my sad life inserting tiny lead bars between thousands of letters that passed through my fingers” this is what Ilyazd wrote in his notes Fifty years later. The fact that he was a typographer in the full sense of the word is evidenced not only by his own confessions.

Ilyazd typing at Limprimerie Union, Paris, 1962.
Photo: Michel Auder (from Iliazd and the Illustrated Book. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1987).

Almost all authors writing about futurism agree that all the names of the “radiant poets” whose works are given in S. Khudakov’s article from the collection Donkey Tail and Target(1913), like the name of the author of the article, is a fiction of I. Zdanevich. If so, then the earliest futuristic experiments with typesetting were undertaken (before Marinetti) by him.

Perhaps we would know more about the attitude of the futurists to the visible word if the reports read by I. Zdanevich in 1918 in the Tiflis “Fantastic Tavern” had been published. According to the list given in the “zucchini” book, they were called like this: Spelling and letter attempts And Magnetism of letters and the anniversary of Zucchini. Judging by the titles, this topic was not touched upon in the reports of other brainiacs.

Ilya Zdanevich returned to Tiflis immediately after the October Revolution and, shortly before the founding of the 41° publishing house, was an apprentice at several printing houses. Was A. Ternov among his teachers? Zdanevich will report about his subsequent collaboration with him: “Following my instructions, the typographer Andrian Ternov typed all the books published under the 41° brand in 1919 and 1920.”

Of course, the other two members of the “41°” triumvirate Terentyev, “ standing on the shoulders of Zdanevich", and Kruchenykh could not help but contribute to the graphic design of at least their works, as evidenced by the mark in the colophon Fantastic zucchini: “Recruited by Adrian Ternov, ruled by Terentyev, Alexey Kruchenykh, Ilya Zdanevich.” However, Ilyazd’s above statement is consistent with data from the catalogs of a number of his exhibitions. In any case, “a little” was certainly behind him, and the stamp of Ilya Zdanevich’s typographic skill is also on Terentyev’s books ( Record of tenderness 1919, 17 nonsense guns, Fact,A treatise on sheer indecency 1920), and on the covers Zamaulei Kruchenykh, and, of course, on editions of the works of the typographer himself.

Zdanevich published a cycle of five dramatic works (“virtep f 5 actions”) under the general title Aslaablichya. Four “actions” were published in separate books (one in Paris, and we’ll talk about it in a special way), and one was included in the collection Fantastic zucchini.

Executed with some bibliophile relish, the design of the “actions” is rather dry and, one might say, functional. Zdanevich methodically searches for a way to phonetically (as heard) write zaumi, for which he highlights stressed syllables or vowels: then in bold ( Janko Krul Albanian 1918), then in italics ( Ostraf Easter 1919), then finally in capitals ( Asel in vain 1919 and Zga allegedly 1920). A special system of “orchestral” recording is also developed here. Bunches of lines, “tied together” with large letters, where all voices have the same letter, really resemble musical notation.

Ilya Zdanevich. Ostraf Easter. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Ilya Zdanevich. Ostraf Easter. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Ilya Zdanevich. Ostraf Easter. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Ilya Zdanevich. Ostraf Easter. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Ilya Zdanevich. Ostraf Easter. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

The episode of refusal to recruit is worth noting as a curiosity. The clichéd title “Easter Easter” can be called a meaningful parody of the set. Something similar can be found on the amazing lithographed poster of Zdanevich’s Paris report Iliazda: elog of Ilya Zdanevich, nicknamed the angel(1922), where some letters, as if cut and presented with parts offset relative to each other, provoke the idea of ​​a typesetting or collage.

Fantastic zucchini, in which Zdanevich included the third part of his pentalogy, namely Asel in vain, has absorbed the best qualities of “41°” publications.

In the design of this, it seems, the thickest book of Russian futurism (192 pages), avant-garde onslaught is combined with elegance. There is a lot to see in the volume, including the famous typographic painting by I. Zdanevich Zokhna and the grooms, showing how meaningful a font mixture can be. What is most striking, however, is the editorial and publishing concept of the collection, and since it is presented in strong typographical terms, it is worth dwelling on.

IN Zucchini no prefaces or comments, but there is a developed apparatus.
In the alphabetical list of participants in the collection, the only Anonymous is not forgotten, although he is just the author of an ancient miniature, a reproduction of which accompanies the article on Georgian manuscripts. This article and several other “ordinary” texts stand on par with typographically assertive nerds. Georgian and Armenian poems are given without translation. All author's sections, as well as the above-mentioned list of reports, as well as each of the pasted-in reproductions, are included in the collection on equal terms. Each section has its own typographic characteristics, combined with the end-to-end principle of presenting the material. In addition to typesetters, the colophon lists all printers and bookbinders. The collection is not categorized.
Why not implement the concept of “allness” of Larionov and Zdanevich? In Soviet times, the genre of open book space was naturally lost.

Fragments of a set from the collection “So-fii Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Fragments of a set from the collection “So-fii Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Fragments of a set from the collection “So-fii Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Fragments of a set from the collection “So-fii Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Fragments of a set from the collection “So-fii Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Loose-leaf from the collection “Sophia Ge-or-gi-ev-not Mel-ni-ko-voy. Fan-ta-sti-che-sky ka-ba-chok.” Ilya Zdanevich. Tiflis: 41°, 1919.

Fantastic zucchini the best of the things published in the latitude of Tiflis. But Ilyazd (his first and last names were crossed in 1920) was to achieve his highest typographical degree in Paris, where he went the next year. Fifth part Aslaablichiy Lidantu headlights was announced several times: “pichataetsa”. But is it because something got in the way in Tiflis, or, conversely, solely thanks to the “Parisian” air, the book was published in 1923.

Lidantu headlights an obligatory and unparalleled attraction in the panopticon of modernist typography. “Every page of this book,” writes Françoise Le Gris-Bergman, “is a picture, pure graphism, demonstrating a typographic repertoire that defies inventory. Moreover, there is so much game here that not every page is readable.”

The set includes three to four dozen popular Russian headsets of that time. But this is not enough for Ilyazd, and he adds giant letters made up of typesetting rulers and ornaments. Why does this “hellish” mixture produce a completely harmonious impression? Firstly, the font mixing occurs against the background of scraps of a normal book typesetting. The lines of the 10th point set the linear character of reading, but the eye immediately joins in the dance of large, bold, alien letters. Secondly, all this happens on pages with a continuous and rather rigid spatial organization: a wide margin at the bottom (Ilyazd’s favorite technique) and an almost square strip with a narrow column of marginalia. Thirdly, the typographer strictly controls each pair of letters that are alien to each other, but happen to be nearby.

If you can name Lidantu headlights typographic performance, then its main characters are the column numbers. They enter the marginalia column, jump along its height, reach incredible sizes and sometimes unceremoniously invade the area of ​​the main text. Ilyazd’s ability to select the most incompatible, and therefore perfectly compatible fonts based on the principle of paired supercontrast, is especially noticeable in the two-digit column numbers (the book has 62 pages).

“The appearance of “Lidantyu faram” marks the end of the “fiery” period of Ilyazd’s work.” Upon the release of the book, the author wrote: “This is the highest point. And having reached it, I throw this book. Goodbye, youth, abstruse, long journey of an acrobat, equivocations, cold mind, everything, everything, everything.”

Beginning in 1940, de luxe editions of books by artists such as Braque, Giacometti, Matisse, Miro, Picasso, Survage, Ernst and others will begin to appear from the same Parisian printing house Union. Their publisher, designer, and sometimes author Iliazd, a French typographer and poet of Russian-Georgian origin. Almost all of them will be typed in the same exquisite Gill Sans font of one point. And only in capitals. Typographic search will be reduced only to the spatial organization of the text due to spaces. The last of a series of books would be published in 1974, a year before the sudden death of the publisher (at the age of eighty-one).

In these things it is not easy to recognize Ilya Zdanevich from the period of the futurist onslaught. However, the use of only capital letters is seen as a tradition in the design of spiritual texts of his native Georgia.

Ilyazd sent this photograph of himself to his mother from France. 1930s.

* Words of recognition Ana-to-liu Bo-rov-ko-vu, bib-lio-gra-fu and so-bi-ra-te-lyu fu-tu-ri- st-s-th-ed-of-the-s-s-s-ties, it-is-possible for me-to-be-those-same-books-that-could-not-be-introduced thoughts about the next article. A special blessing from Sergei Kud-ryav-tse-vu, who did not fail to supply me with a co-vet -stu-y-shche-li-te-ra-tu-roy on the topic and told me a few useful quotes. One of them turned out to be not for me.

Ini-tsi-a-l Ki-rill Martyanov.

Bibliography

1. Kovtun E.F. Russian futuristic book. M.: Book, 1989.
2. Iliazd. Paris: Center Georges Pompidou, 1978.
3. I libri di Iliazd: Dallavanguardia russa alla scuola di Parigi. Firenze: Centro Di. 1991.
4. Iliazd. Ledentu le phare. Paris: Editions Allia, 1995.
5. Kirill Zdanevich, Ilya Zdanevich: Exhibition catalogue. Tbilisi, 1989.
6. Avant-garde and tradition: books by Russian artists of the 20th century: Catalog of the exhibition in the Russian State Library. M.: Dablus, 1993.

Tschichold Ya. Book Design: Selected Articles on Book Design. M., 1980. P. 34.

Let me refer to my own article From pen to print, bypassing typesetting(Advertising. 1985. No. 5. P. 17). Futuristic experiments are not touched upon in the article. I was interested in how, why and what handwriting designers introduce into modern printing, without pedaling the technique itself.

Words by Marinetti. On this see: Polyakov V. Russian Cubo-Futurism: books and ideas. M., 1995. pp. 107–113.

Janecek G. Op.cit. P.111.

Polyakov V. Decree. op. P. 113.

Janecek G. Op.cit. P.119.

It is interesting that some lithographed and engraved books, like this one, came out with typesetting covers.

This was the name for the display technique of a stepped (usually two or three steps) line. In essence, this is the same “ladder” of Mayakovsky.

By the way, it seems to me that Soviet typographic constructivism is attractive because it did not get rid of the birthmark of cubo-futurism and never reached the hotly declared level of “aeroplane” purity and expediency. This level was to be achieved by Western - German, Swiss, Dutch - typographers.

Compton S.P. Op.cit. P.84.

Janecek G. Op.cit. P.216.

Or, strictly speaking, from the right. Janecek draws attention to two books by Vadim Shershenevich, where the lines are turned off (that is, aligned) to the right (Janecek G. Op.cit. P.153).

In Russia it is still practiced to center verses on the page, and this is an example of national typographic rigidity.

Connecting, that is, combining fonts of different sizes within a line, was a painstaking task, since the metal printing form does not tolerate voids. Even letters of the same size could jump, because the baseline standard had not yet been developed.

See: Gerchuk Yu.Ya. Art worlds of the book. M., 1989. P. 102.

Sometimes display craftsmen put an exact sketch on a typesetting board and typed directly on it, as if using a template. In this case, there could be a printed prototype of the poster on the board.

Quote from: Le Gris-Bergmann F. Iliazd and the constellation of his oeuvre // Iliazd and the illustrated book. NY, 1987. P.38.

According to Audrey Isselbacher, the name of the publishing house (the company’s university, a group of nerds) means “the latitude of Tiflis, the alcohol content of the brandy and the temperature that causes delirium with fever” (Isselbacher A. Iliazd and the tradition of the “livre de peinte” // Ibid. P .12).

Quote from: Le Gris-Bergmann F. Op.cit. P.24

Janecek G. Op.cit. P.189.

“Pichataetsa” was promised in 1919. Wasn't the book at least partially typed in Tiflis? Did Ilyazd bring test prints to Paris?

Le Gris-Bergmann F. Op.cit. P.31.

Quote from: Gayraud R. 1923 - De “Ledentu le Phare” aux “Parigots”: Il’a Zdanevich et la transformation de la “zaum” // Abstruse futurism and dadaism in Russian culture. Bern, 1991.

See: Le Gris-Bergmann F. Op.cit. P.21.

The doctrine of display typesetting, published by Alexander Valdov in the latest revision by F. Bauer. Kharkov, 1900. P. 8.

Quote by: Molok Yu. Decree. op. P.9. Judging by the date of the letter, the book is meant Naked among the clothed.