By Fred Smeijers and Robin Kinross
‘Counterpunch is both an explanation of the 16th-century method of cutting metal type and an impassioned plea for contemporary designers to incorporate the lessons of history as a means of creating typography in our digital age. Smeijers sees the counterpunch technique as essential for ensuring the regularity of form, repeatability, and speed of production necessary for rational design and traces the history of letterform design to discover how technique influenced the shape of type, whether the metal punches of the past or today’s computer-generated forms.’
Design Archive Feature, Design Education, Members Only Content, Regional Histories, Typography & Type Design
The August 1964 issue highlights the Typography class at the Pratt Institute in New York, a relatively new course at the time. Pratt, one of the most renowned art schools in the United States, had departments for graphic design, painting, art education, industrial design, and applied graphics in the 1960s. The typography course combined theoretical lectures with practical workshops, aimed at students beginning their journey into the discipline.
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Design Archive Feature, Members Only Content, Regional Histories, Typography & Type Design
50 examples of Czech typography from Typografia Vol. XIX (1908). Czech commercial printing at the crossroads of Art Nouveau and early modernism, with work by Otokar Císař, Method Kaláb, and Mořic Novotný.
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Design Archive Feature, Members Only Content, Poster Design, Regional Histories
The 1960 awards presented 420 poster entries from Swiss designers. Notable winners included Robert Büchler's typographic poster for the Museum of Applied Arts Basel and J. Müller-Brockmann’s Der Film poster for the Museum of Applied Arts and Gerstner + Kutter's asymmetric typographic poster for National-Zeitung SA Basel.
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