Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography 1896-1953

Since Gutenberg & his movable type heralded the world of printing, typography has been continually evolving into a graphic art. Today, thanks to computer technology, the world of graphic design is accessible to everyone. Type size, typeface, leading, boldface, italic--all these & other typographical considerations are now a part of our visual vocabulary. In a fifty-seven-year period from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1950s, innovative letterforms reflected the tremendous upheaval being generated by the avant-garde in all the arts. Among the famous artists involved in the series of modernist movements during this era were William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, & Marcel Duchamp. Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography 1896-1953--through eighty paperworks in full color--documents the important advances made in the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, Dadaism, DeStijl, Russian Constructivism, & Bauhaus movements. David Ryan's lucid profiles accompany each work & place each image in context with the period. He also explains the innovative techniques used in the artworks, including lettering methods, sans serif alphabets, emphasis through all lowercase letters, & the combining of color, pattern, & type. Posters, lithographs, exhibition catalogs, covers--all reveal that the modernist typography was anything but "letter perfect." The individuality of the fractured letters, smudges, & hand-rendered elements reveals the irony behind the book's title. But it is this peculiar character that is so attractive to today's graphic lovers. Letter Perfect is a fitting homage to the foibles & artistic skills of the typographical artists of the modernist movements.David Ryan is the author of 'Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography 1896-1953' with ISBN 9780764916151 and ISBN 0764916157.