O t l A i c h e r

Post World War 2 Typography in Germany and the USA

Herb Lubalin

O t l A i c h e r

Post World War 2 Typography in Germany and the USA

His work was a lot more experimental, and playful. He used letters as images, and the way com-bined them and how the interacted with each other allowed from much greater variety in his work.

Typography by: Herb Lubalin & Otl Aicher

Post World War 2 Typography in Germany and the USA

Once the war was over, in 1946,

he went to the Akademie der Bil-

denden Künste in Munich to study

sculpture. In 1947 he started his

own studio back in his home city

of Ulm. At his studio he worked

with Braun Electric, Lufthansa, the

Westdeutsche Landesbank, and

the ZDF as his clients. In 1953 he

started a school for design in Ulm

along with Max Bill, and his wife

Inge Scholl. In 1972 he was hired

as lead designer for the Munich

Olympic games, where he create

signage using stylized stick figures

to represent the different activities,

which would

A S

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w Otl Aicher was born on May 23rd , 1922 in Ulm,

Germany. During his youth he was arrested multiple times for

refusing to join the Hitler youth, and later deserted from the

German army. He hid with his friend Werner Scholl, who’s

two siblings were executed by the Nazi party for being part

of the White Rose, a resistance movement against the Nazis.

later carry over to other signs in

the public, He later created the

Traffic font for the Munich transport

services and in 1989 created Rotis

after the town he moved his studio

to. He also designed the logo for

the Munich airport. In 1991 he died

after being in a traffic accident.

During his design career Otl experi-

enced many different technological

advancements in his field from the

letterpress, to phototypesetting, to

finally the computer. He was able

to use and master all of them, even

making his Rotis font on the comput-

er. His designs had been influenced

heavily by his heritage, even after

the turmoil of the World War, there

was a very strong influence that

the German design history had on

Otl’s deign sense, pushing him into

certain styles.

Herb Lubalin was born in 1918 in

New York. At age 17 in 1936 he

began studying at Cooper Union

where he gained his interest in

typography. After graduating in

1939 he became the art director

for Deutsch & Shea Advertising in

1941, then for Fairchild Publica-

tions in 1942 and Riess Advertis-

ing in 1943. For twenty years he

worked for Sulder & Hennessey.

In 1964 he created his own studio

call Herb Lubain Inc. In 1970 he

creates the International Type-

face Corporation. He died in 1981

in New York.

Like Otl, Herb also was able to use multiple generations of type creating technolo-

gies, however for creating his fonts he used photo type, and not the comput-

er. For his work Otl created his work using a very minimalist style. When looking

at his Lufthansa work, he created a very simple design. The timetable he created

for them, it uses simple outlined shapes, with the logo in the middle, and small

text explaining what the pamphlet is in three languages. The logo he created

for them is a heavily stylized bird that mimics the shape of a plane. The bird is

Lufthansa’s mascot, a crane, and it is portrayed in the logo flying in front of a

circle that can be seen as representing the sun, as the warm yellow he used for

branding gives the feeling of the

colors of a setting sun. The name

‘Lufthansa’ is shown very clearly

at the top of the page, with that

being the primary focus.

If one looks inside, the design

stays simple. Using only black

and white, with map of the world

taking over most of the page, but

not being overwhelming, Otl split

the page up so that it was clear

where the information that one

was looking for was.

The timetable at the side is simple,

and is clear to follow, something

that is important when people are

in a hurry. The image of the plane

at the bottom gives the viewer

some idea in what kind of plane they will be flying in. The local

flight plan has a heavily stylized

map on it, showing the relation

of all of the airports in Germany,

Austria and Switzerland. It uses

the same basic layout of the general flight plan, only replac-

ing the logo in the center with

the map. This serves to give the

viewer an idea of which airports

are listed in the timetable. The

timetable also keeps Lufthansa’s

name and the warm yellow on

the cover, only revering the color relationship with the

black/brownish color, so that the yellow is the back-

ground color, and the brown is the color of the lines.

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N

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a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o

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A B C D E F G

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Herb Lubalin has a more Post-Modernist approach to his work.

He also used type a lot more expressively, and created entire pieces purely

out of type, as seen in the way he depicted his school’s name. He used the

forms of type to create new and exciting forms that broke up the way we

usually see type.

The way he combined the ‘H’ and

the ‘E’ in ‘THE’, makes the viewer at

first glance still recognize the indi-

vidual letters, as the forms are still

clear, but when looking at it again

one sees how the crossbar of the

‘H’ runs into the middle arm of the

‘E’ creating one letter. He does the

same with the ‘C’ and ‘T’, creating

a new letter, but till keeping the

piece understandable.Wo

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by

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alin

The main thing one notices in

this piece is how the ‘O’ interlock,

and how the ampersand fills both

lines, making up for the break-

ing of the word ‘Architecture’,

allowing the entire piece to from

a solid block. The same goes for

how he spelled out ‘The Bible’

even though it is in a block it

still has a lot of motion with in it,

allowing the viewer’s eyes to flow

around it.

Otl Aicher was heavily influenced

Being from a region that has such a

rich history of typographic design Otl

was somewhat forced into pre-existing

styles. In his designs he created, he

used the skills he learned at school,

where the emphasis was to stay within,

that which had already been estab-

lished by previous designers.

by the typographic styles of the Swiss and

German designers, such as Jan Tschichold,

Joseph Müller-Brockman, Armin Hoffman, etc.

Herb Lubalin on the other hand had much more freedom to design

as he pleased. His work was a lot

more experimental, and playful.

He used letters as images, and the

way combined them and how the

interacted with each other allowed from much greater va-

riety in his work. Sometimes his

work was a bit hard to read,

but that mostly happened in cov-

ers, or in the title, where the mes-

sage, was not as important as how

the piece looked, and even if the viewer did not understand

the work at first glance,

it was easy to figure out, the

way that he had combined

the letters made sense,

and were easily deciphered,

when looked at for longer.

A a B b C c D d E e F f

G g H h I i J j K k L l M m

N n O o P p Q q R r S s

T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z

Avant

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m

Garde

N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z

A a B b C c D d E e F f G g

H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o

P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v

W w X x Y y Z z ( & . , ! ? )

Garde

The main type face Otl created was Rotis it was a sans-serif

type face that could be used as a body text or for header. The

use of modern technology allowed Aicher to create a clean

and simple font that has a wide variety of weights to it.

Also allowed him to make a semi-serif

version of this that adds a serif at the

top of the stem of letters. The Swiss

design that he used was made easier

through the precision of the computer.

Photo type allowed Lubalin to make

very intricate fonts that have a lot of

detail to them, such as the relationship

of the stem to the bowl in the ‘R’s of

Ronda, or how the curves in Serif Goth-

ic were created.

Rotis

Avant Garde

There are some quirks with it

such as the way the tail of the ‘Q’

comes out flat with the baseline or

how the ‘O’ is much taller than it is

wide. Overall it is solid, and seems

stable. Herb Lubalin created four

typefaces, with his most famous

being Avant Garde. It has a

great variety in weights. It is a lot

heavier than Rotis, at regular, and

is also wider, with the ‘O’ being

almost a perfect circle. He also

created a Lubalin Graph, which is

block serif version of Avant Garde,

and is also somewhat thinner than

Avant Garde. His third font is

Ronda which is overall thicker,

and who’s spurs are a lot more

triangular. It also seems to have

a bit of a left slant to it and also

seems to have a bit of Futura in it.

Lubalin’s final font is Serif Gothic.

Lubalin Gragh

Ronda

Serif Gothic

He was heavily influenced by oth-

er designers of his time, and the

general design culture that existed

in Germany and Switzerland at

the time. The technology chang-

es also helped refine his work,

and allowed for greater precision

when working with Swiss Design.

Otl Aicher used Swiss Design to create

a very clean typeface t h a t h a s

a n e x t r a o r d i n a r y n u m b e r o f

w e i g h t s t o i t , a n d u s e d t h i s

s t y l e i n h i s d e s i g n w o r k .

L i k e h i s d e s i g n s L u b a l i n c r e a t e d f o n t s l i k e R o n d a a n d

S e r i f G o t h i c t h a t w e r e s o m e w h a t o u t o f t h e o r d i n a r y t o

b e u s e d f o r t i t l e s , o r s p a r i n g l y a c r o s s o n e s w o r k .

He also made very clean and

simple typefaces l ike Avant

Garde and Lubalin Graph,

which have wider application.

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Serif Gothic Light

ITC Serif

Serif Gothic Black

Gothic

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If one looks inside, the design stays sim-ple. Using only black and white, with map of the world taking over most of the page, but not being overwhelm-ing, Otl split the page up so that it was clear where the information that one was looking for was. nOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

Designer: Max MatthaeusTypefaces: Ronda , R o t i s , A van t Ga r de , L uba l i n G r aph , S e r i f Go t h i cCourse: Typography 3Faculty: Francheska Guerrero

Herb LubalinHerb Lubalin

Herb LubalinHerb LubalinSe r i f Go th i c

Luba l in Graph

Ronda

R o t i s

Avan t Ga rde

O