Devětsil

デヴィェトシル / 1920–1931 / Style / Publishing and Editing

Teige gave the Czech avant-garde group its picture poem. Setting photograph, type and sign together as verse, the group's lyrical strain of constructivism turned interwar Prague into a laboratory of book design.

Devětsil — AI-generated interpretation 1 — AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work

Devětsil — Karel Teige, Pozdrav z cesty, 1923 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Karel Teige, Pozdrav z cesty, 1923 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Devětsil — Jindřich Štyrský, cover for Fantomas: The Hand without a Body, 1930 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Jindřich Štyrský, cover for Fantomas: The Hand without a Body, 1930 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

At a glance

Visual cues

Picture poems
Photographs fused with type
Geometry used lyrically
Constructivist bookbinding

Best used for

Poetry books and literary journals where a visual poem runs beside the text
Spreads pairing photograph and type to be read by association, not explanation

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Dictionary entry

Type: Geometric sans broken like verse lines, numerals and signs read as words
Composition: The spread banded horizontally, photograph and type staggered across it
Material: Primary flats with thin black rules, collage edges left showing
Caution: Borrowing only the constructivist signs loses the poem and leaves a book decorated with geometry that means nothing.
Further study: Karel Teige / Nezval and Poetism / the legacy in postwar Czech book design

Related entries

Constructivism (構成主義)Shared effects: Rebellion.Compare Devětsil and Constructivism
The New Typography (ニュー・タイポグラフィ)Editorially linked for a useful contrast.Compare Devětsil and The New Typography

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