Topography of Typography

Thesis

Thesis: Lissitzky defines typography as the optical, spatial, and energetic organization of content: letters shape concepts rather than merely conveying words, and book space must follow the tensions of thought and the laws of typographic mechanics. The printed book becomes a bioscopic sequence of vision yet is historically superseded—toward an expanded »electro-library« in which typographic design operates as the construction of visual meaning.

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(Some theses from the forthcoming book by El Lissitzky)

1. The words of the printed sheet are seen, not heard.
2. Conventional words communicate concepts; through letters the concept is to be formed.
3. Economy of expression — optics instead of phonetics.
4. The shaping of the book space through the material of type, according to the laws of typographic mechanics, must correspond to the tensile and compressive tensions of the content.
5. The shaping of the book space through the material of clichés that realize the new optics: the supernatural reality of the perfected eye.
6. The continuous sequence of pages — the bioscopic book.
7. The new book demands the new writer-designer; inkpot and quill are dead.
8. The printed sheet overcomes space and time. The printed sheet, the infinity of books, must itself be overcome: the electro-library.

Debate Relations

Authors

El Lissitzky 1890 — 1941 Architect, painter, typographer, graphic designer, book designer, and exhibition designer; co-founder of Constructivism

Kurt Schwitters 1887 — 1948 Artist, painter, poet, spatial artist, graphic designer and typographer

Facts & Data

Published

1923 July

Position

Pro New Typography

Public Domain

● Public domain since 2011

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