ITC Style vs Swiss Punk Typography
ITC様式 / スイス・パンク・タイポグラフィ
ITC Style comes from Type Classification and Swiss Punk Typography from Experimental Typography. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
ITC Style
New York in the phototype era produced a style of huge x-heights and tightly packed settings. Lubalin's conceptual typography and U&lc magazine staged letters as pictures and gave the period its face.
Swiss Punk Typography
In Basel, the home of Swiss style, Weingart took the grid apart from the inside. Exploded letterspacing, stepped settings and layered film exposures turned rebellion within discipline into New Wave typography.
| ITC Style | Swiss Punk Typography | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1970s–1980s | 1970s–1980s |
| Family | Type Classification | Experimental Typography |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Huge x-heights / Tight-not-touching settings / Swashes and ligatures on stage / Letters as image | The grid dismantled / Exploding letterspacing / Stepped compositions / Layered-film textures |
| Best used for | Magazine feature openers where the headline itself must stand as an image · Cosmetics and music advertising giving the shape of a word gloss and lift | Announcements for experimental music and art that show the discipline breaking · School and studio publications where the method itself is the subject |
| Type | A large x-height face packed tight, with ligatures and swashes worked in | Letterspacing opened in steps, one word repeated at several sizes |
| Composition | The headline massed into a few lines, leading closed to make one shape | Keep the grid visible while stepping the lines, measuring every offset |
| Material | Printed as flat color on glossy stock that tightens the letter edges | Layered exposures building halftone and reversal through the film |
| Caution | Tracking pushed until the letters touch turns the line into pattern rather than reading and the headline stops working. | Breaking a grid you never built leaves the offsets nothing to measure against, so the rebellion within discipline never happens and only mess remains. |