The New Typography vs Poetism

ニュー・タイポグラフィ / ポエティスム

The New Typography comes from Experimental Typography and Poetism from Avant-garde. One is layout and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.

The New Typography

The New Typography — モホリ＝ナジのタイポグラフィック・コラージュ 1922（CC BY 3.0）The New Typography — モホリ＝ナジ『絵画・写真・映画』バウハウス叢書8 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainThe New Typography — バウハウス叢書の広告 1925 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Turned printed matter into rational information structure through asymmetry, sans-serifs, photography and functional hierarchy.

Poetism

Poetism — Karel Teige《キテラ島への船出》1923–24, プラハ市立美術館 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainPoetism — Karel Teige《フラッチャニのモチーフ》1920 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domainPoetism — Karel Teige によるヤロスラフ・サイフェルトの肖像 1921 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

The programme of the Czech avant-garde group Devětsil, extending poetry onto the page and into life itself. Its 'picture poems' combining photomontage with type, its compositions of circles and diagonals, and its vivid two-colour printing turned poetry books, magazines and posters into one continuous field of experiment.

The New TypographyPoetism
Era1920s–1930s1923–1934
FamilyExperimental TypographyAvant-garde
KindLayoutStyle
CuesAsymmetry / Sans-serif type / Photography / Functional white spacePhotomontage juxtaposed with type / Compositions of circles and diagonals / Two vivid, restricted colours / Typography as poetry
Best used forRebuilding letterheads and forms so they read in order without ornament · Fixing the hierarchy of headline, text and picture in a single decisionPoetry collections and cultural programmes set as typographic picture poems · Two-colour risograph posters where circles, rules and photographs rhyme
TypeOne sans in two weights, with hierarchy carried by size aloneConstructivist grotesques mixed across playful sizes, letters allowed to behave as images
CompositionDrop centering, set a left axis, divide areas with rules and spaceCircles, diagonals and rules dividing the page and choreographing photomontage fragments
MaterialBlack and red, halftone photography, plain rules, no ornamentTwo vivid inks, typically red with black or blue, on warm book paper
CautionWhen asymmetry becomes the aim in itself the reading order is never settled, and the page ends up harder to read than the ornamented one it replaced.Building the page with pure constructivist severity drops the lyric play between word and image, leaving engineering rather than a poem.

Put these two together

Experimental Typography ／ Avant-garde

IndexStyle